Search Results for
"education"

Australia faces significant challenges in securing a skilled workforce. A challenge particularly evident in the hospitality and food trades. This study investigates the workplace training curriculum of food trades apprentices in the state of Victoria. Utilising case studies and semi-structured interviews, the research evaluates the calibre of instruction provided to bakery apprentices in both workplace settings and vocational institutions. The analysis, grounded in Fuller and Unwin’s expansive/restrictive continuum (2003), yields two principal conclusions. First, the study reveals a conflict between operational productivity and on-the-job learning. Employers frequently prioritize business interests over apprentice development, potentially leading to disillusionment and attrition among trainees. Second, the findings demonstrate that a well-crafted training curriculum fosters a sense of vocational identity and belonging, enhancing apprentices’ commitment to their chosen field. This research offers valuable insights into how stakeholders can collaborate to improve apprenticeship completion rates and cultivate a stronger sense of vocation within workplace learners. © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This article presents a theoretical approach to examining professional knowledge practices on online platforms, employing the concept of epistemic objects and their incompleteness, and analysing how objects are actively produced and negotiated through interactions among users and the platform. We illustrate this approach by conducting an interaction analysis of two threads from Stack Overflow, a prominent online platform where millions of software developers ask and answer programming-related questions. The findings demonstrate that the incompleteness of epistemic objects is central to understanding how professionals collectively engage with and produce knowledge online. They also highlight the role of specific technical features of platforms and the embeddedness of objects–and, thereby, the platforms themselves–in the broader professional domain. The article discusses the potential of the theoretical approach for investigating online platforms as sites for professional learning and calls for educational programs and platform designs that support professionals’ engagements with epistemic objects. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) live in the American imagination as promising tools for solving pressing global challenges and enhancing quality of life. Despite the importance of the STEM disciplines in the landscape of U.S. political, economic, and social priorities, STEM learning opportunities are unevenly distributed, and the experiences an individual has in STEM education are likely to vary tremendously based on their race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, gender, and a myriad of other factors. Equity in K-12 STEM education: Framing Decisions for the Future approaches equity in STEM education not as a singular goal but as an ongoing process that requires intentional decision-making and action toward addressing and disrupting existing inequities and envisioning a more just future. Stakeholders at all levels of the education system - including state, district, and school leaders and classroom teachers - have roles as decision-makers who can advance equity. This consensus study report provides five equity frames as a guide to help decision-makers articulate short- and long-term goals for equity and make decisions about policy and practice. © 2025 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

This study investigated postsecondary students’ team-level creative thinking using online peer assessment as a tool for electronic brainstorming. Student teams developed ideas for a public service announcement within the platform peerScholar. Following an explanatory sequential mixed method design, the researchers surveyed student perceptions of online peer assessment as a support for team-based creative thinking, then qualitatively analyzed textual interactions within teams that may have influenced those perceptions. Nine out of 10 teams gave a high score for online peer assessment supporting team-based creative thinking (M ≥ 3.8). However, scores varied across teams (ranging from M = 3.7 to 4.8), with strength in agreement of scoring within teams ranging from rWG = 0.67 to 0.96. Textual analysis revealed that students provided a range of Cognitive and Affective feedback. Affective feedback was often supportive, while Cognitive feedback tended to be direct but nonabrasive, usually involving suggestions or identifying issues with ideas. Teams that balanced Cognitive and Affective feedback tended to reach stronger agreement about online peer assessment supporting team-based creative thinking while maintaining high mean scores. These patterns indicate that integrating higher frequencies of both feedback may support team-based creativity by fostering a unified belief in the value of the collaborative work. © 2025 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

We explored the role of workplace learning and mentoring in the relationship between future work self and career calling among students. The nationwide sample comprised 741 Science and Engineering students from six higher vocational colleges in China (female = 46.56%; mean age = 19.23 years, SD = 1.05 years). The students completed the Future Work Self Scale, the Internship-Related Learning Outcomes Scale, the Mentoring Functions Questionnaire, and the Chinese Calling Scale. The future work self was significantly associated with higher career calling. Workplace learning played a partial mediating role between future work self and career calling among students, resulting in higher career calling. Mentoring played a moderating role in the process of workplace learning on career calling, and the interaction between mentoring and workplace learning strongly influenced career calling, with a higher mentoring making it stronger. These findings suggest a need for mentored workplace learning interventions to support career calling among college students. © 2025 Africa Scholarship Development Enterprize.

Information and communication technology development in recent years has brought significant educational changes. Virtual learning environments (VLEs) provide students with interactive and flexible online learning. This study aims to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the virtual lab platform (VLP) in improving students' programming skills, focusing on aspects of logic and algorithms, syntax and code structure, and variables and functions. The total sample of 64 students was chosen using a purposive sampling technique and was divided into the experimental group (34 students) and the control group (30 students). Data collection in this study involved several methods: programming skill tests, questionnaires, and monitoring VLP activity logs. According to research results, VLP improves students' programming skills more significantly than conventional methods. Data analysis shows significant differences between the experimental group with VLP and the control group with conventional methods, supporting the effectiveness of VLP as an alternative to learning. In addition, students' positive perception of VLP contributes significantly to learning motivation and ease of use, suggesting that learning technologies such as VLP can improve overall learning motivation. This study provides an empirical basis for educational institutions to consider VLP as a teaching strategy to increase students' learning potential in programming. © 2025 Malque Publishing. All rights reserved.

Individual entrepreneurial orientation (Ind.EO) provides a promising framework for scholars and practitioners to examine how individuals with entrepreneurial tendencies create new businesses or transform existing ones through modifications in business practices, whether individually, in teams, or in managerial positions. This paper aims to systematically review and synthesize the existing literature on Ind.EO, identify key research gaps, and outline potential directions for future studies. By analyzing 210 articles from top-tier journals (Q1 and Q2) in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, this review categorizes the research according to six domains: construct development, performance and outcomes, entrepreneurial process, institutional and social contexts, personal-level variables, and entrepreneurial education and learning. We contribute by identifying key research domains within the Ind.EO literature and offering a unique categorization. Additionally, we develop a research agenda that includes insights from our review, integration into a well-established framework, and validation of the proposed research questions through scholars’ feedback. © 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article explores the implementation and sustainability of innovative educational practices in a joint collaborative research project involving Estonia and Lithuania. Four interventions following the Educational Learning Lab approach were designed to counteract drop-out from vocational education and training for young people at risk of social exclusion. The study investigates the conditions for vocational teachers' knowledge appropriation leading to sustainable innovation in the empowerment of vulnerable students. Through applying the Knowledge Appropriation Model to the design of intervention cases, data collection and analyses, the article discusses how knowledge maturation, scaffolding, and appropriation practices emerged during the Educational Learning Labs. © © 2025 Väljataga, Ümarik, Loogma, Bentsalo, Daukilas, Kaminskiene, Vaitkute, Gedviliene and Tutlys.