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Alison Fuller is a British educational researcher and Professor of Vocational Education and Work at the Institute of Education of the University College London and, [1] where she also serves as Pro-Director for Research and Development. She is a leading educational researcher in the UK, with her research centering on work transitions, apprenticeships, vocational education and training, and workplace learning. [2]
Before joining University College London, Alison Fuller served as Director of Research and Head of the Lifelong Work-Related Learning Research Centre at the Southampton Education School of the University of Southampton. She then joined the Institute of Education of the University College London in 2013. [3]
Alison Fuller's research focuses on work transitions, apprenticeships, vocational education and training, and workplace learning. A frequent academic collaborator of hers is Lorna Unwin (University College London). Already in the 1990s, Fuller and Unwin argued in favour of a reconceptualization of apprenticeships based on a reconciliation of learner-centred and transmission approaches to pedagogy, challenging the perceived superiority of a formal education taking place only in educational institutions. [4] Face to wide variation in UK apprentices' experiences with seemingly similar programmes, Fuller and Unwin co-operated with a range of enterprises to perform case study research on their apprenticeships. As a result, they developed the concept of expansive-restrictive continuum to characterize the differences in apprenticeship and highlight how apprenticeships' quality is mediated through participation, personal development and institutional arrangements, with important lessons for the UK's Modern Apprenticeship programme and the integration of organizational and personal development. [5] [6] Arguing that the Modern Apprenticeship programme was being undermined by a lack of employer demand and commitment and resulted in poor outcomes, Fuller and Unwin have moreover been critical of public plans to expand the programme as a means of social inclusion. [7]
In research with Unwin, Phil and Heather Hodkinson, Karen Evans, Natansha Kersh and Peter Senker, Fuller highlights the significance of workers' biographies for workplace learning, arguing that the latter is framed by (i) workers' prior knowledge and skills, (ii) workers' habitus, (iii) workers' individual dispositions, and (iv) the existence of a workplace community as a locus of identity. [8] By contrast, the concept of legitimate peripheral participation, [9] as developed by Lave and Wenger, is inadequate to conceptualize workplace learning in modern workplaces due to its outdated portrayal of workplaces in advanced industrial societies and of the institutional environments in which people work, which strongly influence the opportunities and barriers employees encounter with regard to workplace learning. [10] Together with Unwin, Alan Felstead, David Ashton, Peter Butler and Tracey Lee, Fuller makes the case for a conceptualization of learning as a form of participation, wherein individual performance at work can be substantially enhanced by social relationships and mutual support, a perspective ignored by the prevailing metaphor of "learning as acquisition". [11] Finally, Fuller and Unwin have challenged the picture of a linear trajectory for apprenticeships wherein older employees mould novices into experts, where expertise is equated with experience. [12]
Vocational education is education that prepares people for a skilled craft as an artisan, trade as a tradesperson, or work as a technician. Vocational education can also be seen as that type of education given to an individual to prepare that individual to be gainfully employed or self employed with requisite skill. Vocational education is known by a variety of names, depending on the country concerned, including career and technical education, or acronyms such as TVET and TAFE.
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated occupation. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies.
Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. It can mean any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling, encompassing basic literacy to personal fulfillment as a lifelong learner, and to ensure the fulfillment of an individual.
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Education in England is overseen by the Department for Education. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level. State-funded schools may be selective grammar schools or non-selective comprehensive schools. All state schools are subject to assessment and inspection by the government department Ofsted. England also has private schools and home education; legally, parents may choose to educate their children by any suitable means.
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments. The UK Government is responsible for England, whilst the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.
Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of learning for either personal or professional reasons.
Informal learning is characterized "by a low degree of planning and organizing in terms of the learning context, learning support, learning time, and learning objectives". It differs from formal learning, non-formal learning, and self-regulated learning, because it has no set objective in terms of learning outcomes, but an intent to act from the learner's standpoint. Typical mechanisms of informal learning include trial and error or learning-by-doing, modeling, feedback, and reflection. For learners this includes heuristic language building, socialization, enculturation, and play. Informal learning is a pervasive ongoing phenomenon of learning via participation or learning via knowledge creation, in contrast with the traditional view of teacher-centered learning via knowledge acquisition. Estimates suggest that about 70-90 percent of adult learning takes place informally and outside educational institutions.
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.
Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, syllabus, accreditation and certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with 'informal learning', which typically take place naturally and spontaneously as part of other activities. These form the three styles of learning recognised and supported by the OECD.
The history of education in England is documented from Saxon settlement of England, and the setting up of the first cathedral schools in 597 and 604.
In England, learning and skills refers typically to post-compulsory education and training, provided by further education and sixth form colleges, schools with sixth forms, local authority and adult education institutions, private and voluntary sector providers, offender learning, and workplace learning including Apprenticeships and other employer-facing initiatives. The learning and skills sector is vital to increasing productivity, economic competitiveness and sustainable employment in the UK
Philipp C. Gonon is a Swiss educationist with his main focus on vocational education and training studies and continuing education.
Dual-sector education is a system of tertiary education that includes substantial amounts of both vocational (skills-based) and higher (academic-based) education in the same institution.
Instructus Skills is both the standard setting organisation for business skills and the largest apprenticeship-issuing authority in the United Kingdom by number of certificates issued. Instructus Skills has one of the largest organisational footprints of any standards-setting body or Sector Skills Council representing approximately 11 million UK employees working in pan-sector occupations, and developed apprenticeship frameworks which were expected to be started by over 122,000 learners during 2010–11.
Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) is a theoretical framework which helps to understand and analyse the relationship between the human mind and activity. It traces its origins to the founders of the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology L. S. Vygotsky and Aleksei N. Leontiev. Vygotsky's important insight into the dynamics of consciousness was that it is essentially subjective and shaped by the history of each individual's social and cultural experience. Especially since the 1990s, CHAT has attracted a growing interest among academics worldwide. Elsewhere CHAT has been defined as "a cross-disciplinary framework for studying how humans purposefully transform natural and social reality, including themselves, as an ongoing culturally and historically situated, materially and socially mediated process". Core ideas are: 1) humans act collectively, learn by doing, and communicate in and via their actions; 2) humans make, employ, and adapt tools of all kinds to learn and communicate; and 3) community is central to the process of making and interpreting meaning – and thus to all forms of learning, communicating, and acting.
Stephen Richard Billett is an Australian educational researcher and Professor of Adult Vocational Education in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. His research centres on vocational learning, workplace learning, and learning for vocational purposes.
TVE refers to all forms and levels of education which provide knowledge and skills related to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life through formal, non-formal and informal learning methods in both school-based and work-based learning contexts.To achieve its aims and purposes, TVE focuses on the learning and mastery of specialized techniques and the scientific principles underlying those techniques, as well as general knowledge, skills and values.
Work-integrated learning (WIL) provides students with the opportunity to apply their learning from academic studies to relevant experiences and reciprocate learning back to their studies. WIL is an umbrella term; opportunities exist in various formats both on-campus and off-campus. Although WIL shares some of the same offerings as work-based learning (WBL), it is distinct in that WIL is part of school curriculum and often guided by learning objectives, while WBL is primarily grounded in the workplace and not necessarily connected to academic studies. WIL opportunities include but are not limited to: apprenticeships, field experience, mandatory professional practice, co-operative education, internships, applied research projects, and service learning. In Canada, WIL is defined by 9 types of experiential learning: (1) Co-op Work Term, (2) Internship, (3) Clinical Placement, (4) Field Placement, (5) Apprenticeship, (6) Applied Research, (7) Entrepreneurship, (8) Service Learning, and (9) Work Experience.
Apprenticeships have a long tradition in the United Kingdom, dating back to around the 12th century. They flourished in the 14th century and were expanded during the industrial revolution. In modern times, apprenticeships were formalised in 1964 by act of parliament and they continue to be in widespread use to this day.
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