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In vocational education, teaching and learning are expected to take place in the different learning arenas; schools and workplaces. In such a dual school system, the question of transfer is vital, i.e. how to use knowledge learned in previous situations in new situations. This article is an empirical contribution to research concerning transfer, by means of results from semi-structured group interviews with teachers and supervisors who educate students in the Energy program and the Industry program in Swedish upper secondary school. The interviews were analysed by analyses of narratives. The results show four themes of transfer in the interviews: (1) transfer of basic knowledge, (2) transfer of principles and skills, (3) transfer of written materials and real life and (4) transfer of experiences. The results also show three factors that are crucial in order to create possibilities for transfer: (1) communication, (2) financial resources and (3) reflection. These factors demand close cooperation between the teachers and supervisors during the students' vocational education.

Educational research has for a long time, and from various angles, been criticised for fairly unilaterally researching teachers and their activities, rather than allowing them to be involved in the research process as such. In parallel with this, practice-based school research has been requested in research, and aiming for developing teacher's teaching on a scientific basis and putting theories into practice has been an area of focus in steering documents as well in research (cf. Brante et al. 2015; Carlgren 2017; Lo 2012; SFS 2010: 800). Over the past decade, however, one can see a development where teachers are increasingly involved in research, and where they, together with researchers, focus on issues that the school and its teachers have been involved in formulating (Ko 2018; Postholm 2018). In this work, action research studies in iterative circles such as Learning studies have been identified as effective approaches for teachers to change and develop their teaching practices, as well as improving student learning (cf. Marton and Ling 2007; Pang and Ling 2012; Timperley 2011). According to Lo (2012) theories need to be tested in practice in order to see how they can be useful for teachers to improve teaching and learning. Furthermore, Lo argues that Learning studies need to be developed in more subject areas than what has been previously been done and also stresses the

The specific focus of this article is how critical aspects of the object of learning to weld are made relevant in interaction between a vocational teacher and a student in the learning processes of welding as part of a Swedish upper-secondary technical vocational education programme. By intertwining variation theory with a conversation analytical approach, our analysis shows that the teaching focus alternates between the process as a whole and details about the welding process, and how the relation between the critical aspects are negotiated in the teaching situations. Furthermore, the teacher and the student together build up a common resource of experiences to which they can relate the parts and the whole, and the teaching becomes increasingly subject specific as the teacher and student build up more common experiences. The approach used in this article sheds light on the complexity of learning to weld, and also facilitates an understanding of welding as an object of learning as such.

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.

The aim of this study is to gain more knowledge about the gaps vocational teachers identify between school and workplaces in upper secondary vocational education, and their experiences of using digital technology as boundary objects to bridge these gaps. This study builds on theories of boundary crossing and is carried out through in-depth interviews with six vocational teachers. For the analysis, a model is used, where the concept learning mechanisms is borrowed from Akkerman and Bakker. In our model, the learning mechanisms coordination, reflection and transformation represent three levels to which all the gaps identified by the teachers relate. The teachers' pedagogical aims are qualitatively different on the different levels. At the basic level, coordination; gaps with the aim to control and to keep in touch with students in their workplaces, are identified, whereas at the next level, reflection; the gaps that need to be bridged, concern creating better conditions for the students to reflect on and connect with what they have learned in the different learning arenas. Those teachers identifying gaps on the most elaborated level, transformation, want to create a complete educational experience for their students, as they try to find a seamless way of crossing the boundaries between school and the workplace.

Abstract:In this study, teachers and workplace supervisors in two vocational programmes at a Swedish upper secondary school were interviewed about their experiences of what is important to teach and learn during vocational education. The interviews were analysed thematically by the qualitative method analysis of narratives concerning what the informants talked about concerning the educational content. The told experiences of educational content concern five themes: basic knowledge, assessment, different educations, interest and integration of theory and practice. These themes relates to different levels of knowledge, from basic knowledge to learning to learn.

This article describes the process of a learning study conducted in technology education in a Swedish preschool class. The learning study method used in this study is a collaborative method, where researchers and teachers work together as a team concerning teaching and learning about a specific learning object. The object of learning in this study concerns strong constructions and framed structures. This article describes how this learning study was conducted and discusses reflections made during the process. Furthermore, we discuss how the learning study method could be implemented in technology education using hands-on material. Some of the results point to problems of delimiting an object of learning in technology education using hands-on material and the complexity in the relation between content and context in learning. The results also show benefits from the collaborative method where researchers and teachers work together with regards to specific learning content in the technology classroom.