Apprenticeship training curriculum: examining its negotiated design and the ensuing effects on learner engagement

Abstract

Apprenticeship training has a long and successful history in Australia. However, despite our best efforts to provide a modernised and flexible vocational curriculum, apprentice learners are leaving their training in ever-increasing numbers. Hence, there is a need to undertake a detailed study of apprenticeship training and the Vocational Education and Training (VET) curriculum which informs its practice. In this dissertation, I investigate the decision-making processes of VET curriculum design from its conception by industry and governments through to its implementation by college trainers. I seek to understand how the industrial parties of vocational education negotiate the curriculum of apprenticeship training, and with what effects on the apprentice training experience?The study uses a conceptual framework of curriculum as being intended, enacted, and experienced to structure the research inquiry. I use the theoretical concepts of learning through participation and acquisition to understand the accumulative effects on the apprentice experience and their subsequent levels of engagement. I focus on apprenticeships within the baking industry, and I interview the design participants throughout the curriculum design process. The study uses in-depth interviews with twenty-three research participants as well as supporting public and private documents and workplace training observations. The research findings make several important contributions toward VET research in the knowledge domains of vocational curriculum design and workplace learning. First, the study presents a detailed illumination of the curriculum design process from its conception by governments, through to its implementation by college trainers, and its ensuant influence over apprentice learners. Second, the thesis contributes to existing concepts of vocational knowledge formation in workplace practice settings. Third, the study extends existing workplace learning theoretical descriptions of acquisition and participation.Fourth, the study's findings contribute to a socio-political conception of workplace learning relations.Together, these findings provide a clearer understanding of the relationship between apprenticeship training and a learner's decision to leave.