COST Action A11

Directorate-General For Research And Innovation European Commission

Description

Evaluation and assessment of flexibility, mobility and transferability in European countries
Environmental research
Vocational training

Informations

• Publié par: DIRECTORATE-GENERAL-FOR-RESEARCH-AND-INNOVATION-EUROPEAN-COMMISSION
• Nombre de lectures: 71
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

European cooperation in the field of scientific and technical research COST
Social sciences
Evaluation and assessment of flexibility
mobility and transferability
in European countries
ÌT Action Ail
Flexibility, transferability, mobility as targets of vocational education training
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General Research — Unit AP.2 — COST Action
Contact: Mr. Vesa-Matti Lahti
Address: European Commission, rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200 (SDME 1/44),
B-1049 Brussels — Tel. [phone]; fax [phone] European Commission
COST Action Al 1
Evaluation and assessment of flexibility,
mobility and transferability
in European countries
Proceedings of COST Al l — Working Group 5
Working Document No 1
Edited by
Klaus Beck
Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz, FB 0 3
D-55099 Mainz
http://wiwi.uni-mainz.de/wipaed/beck/welcome.html
Brussels/Mainz 1999
Directorate-General for Research
2000 EUR 19230 LEGAL NOTICE
Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission
is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information.
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It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int).
Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2000
ISBN 92-828-8549-6
© European Communities, 2000
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
Printed ¡n Belgium
PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER TABL E O F CONTENTS
Pag e
5 INTRODUCTIO N
Evaluation and Assessment as Objects and 7 KLAUS BECK
Objectives of European Research Co-Operation -
Background, Basis and Boundaries
PAR T I: NATIONAL REPORTS 13
Research on Assessment in Vocational Education 15 KURT DOMS /
JEF VERHOEVEN in Belgium (Flanders). An Overview
ANU RÄISÄNEN / Education and Assessment in Vocational 41
Education in Finland LEENA KOSKI /
HANNU VALKAMA /
HANNELE ELLA
JAN JOHANSSON Evaluation of Qualified Vocational Education in 59
Sweden
HARM TTLLEMA / Organising Assessment and Instruction around 65
JOSEPH KESSELS / Competencies in Vocational Education.
FRANS MEUERS A Framework and a Case from the Netherlands
PETER R. DEN BOER / Changes and Evaluation in Dutch VET 83
TRUUS G.J. HARMS
KATHRYN ECCLESSTONE Systems of Scrunity and Audit Evaluation of 103
Vocational Education and Training in the United
Kingdom Page
111 PART II: SELECTED PROBLEMS
TASOS ZEMBYLAS I What Do Artists Need for Their Jobs and What 113
OLIVER KRESS Does the Society Need Artists for?
ANTONIETTA DE Evaluation of Training Programmes in Italy. 127
SANCTIS/ General Rmarks and a Case Study
CLAUDIA VILLANTE
BENITO ECHEVERRÍA / Evaluation of a Tans versa l Technique-Vocational 141
SOFIA ISUS / Education and Training Program at Colombia
LANDER SARASOLA,
HENK KUIJPER Requirements and Solutions for Harmonizing 151
Flexibility and Certificaton. Some Examples
JACQUES DOMÍNGUEZ / A Flexible Individualised Training System for 159
GÉRARD ΡΠΉΟΝ Small Building Companies Based on Trainees'
Mobility and Competencies' Transferability
KATHRYN ECCLESTONE Assessment in the UK Vocational Education and 167
Training System. Research Issues and Future
Directions
FRANK COFFIELD Redesigning theTitanic? A New Framework for 177
Post 16 Learning in England
INDEX OF AUTHOR S 189 INTRODUCTION KLAUS BECK
Evaluation and Assessment as Objects and Objectives of
European Research Co-operation -
Background, Basis and Boundaries
Within the framework of COST Action 11 there are five Working Groups
dealing with different aspects of flexibility, mobility and transferability of
vocational competencies. The papers in this volume presented at meetings of
Working Group No. 5 (WG 5) focus on the aspects "evaluation" and
"assessment". They are the result of initial efforts to get insight in the intricate
and varied field to be studied. Researchers and experts of ten European
countries report on national structures and problems related to evaluation and
assessment in VET having in mind one of the main objectives of WG 5, i.e. to
come to a common understanding of the nature of difficulties to be envisaged
in starting international research co-operation. This volume documents the
beginning of a process which might end up provisionally at a network of
continuing information on research findings and, maybe, also at common
research projects.
To be sure, what COST Al 1 in general and WG 5 in particular are trying
to carry forward is a development which needs to be seen in a long-term
perspective. Compared to the task of European integration of technical
standards (which is another facet of COST Programme) our project envisaged
is complex in the true sense of the word. At present, there is no country in
Europe where the understanding of flexibility, mobility and transferability is
sufficiently fixed and acknowledged nation-wide, much less so at an
international level. One of the important differences to the technical area is
that integration in that field means standardisation and/or dealing with
computable equations whereas in vocational education it means adjustment
and — what is more important - learning. Every change in terms and titles as
well as in degrees and certificates - to give only some simple examples - has
not only to be co-ordinated but also to be perceived and internalised by all
people involved in vocational affairs whether teachers or students, employers
or employees, consultants or consultées. Therefore, processes of integration in
the field of vocation are much more complicated than those in the field of
techniques. But this is only one part of the problem. Before experts and
particularly researchers can co-operate in dealing with comparison and
adjustment they, on their part, first have to compare and to adjust their own
instruments - on a meta-level, as it were. These instruments are their
languages and their ideas about vocation and related issues. Obviously, shape KLAUS BECK
and 'gestalt' of language and ideas are a matter of culture and tradition and
therefore, again, working in this field means learning.
Admittedly, we have already some tradition in European comparative
research on vocational education, labour market, economics, and so on. But
many fundamental problems in this field are still to be solved. It is not at all
surprising that, e.g., in German educational science a difference is made
between 'pedagogy of foreign countries'("Auslandspädagogik") and
'comparative pedagogy' ("Vergleichende Pädagogik"). The former strives for
descriptions of (vocational) educational systems and processes - a task which
is often difficult enough. But to meet the need of international co-operation,
research of the latter type has to be carried out. This means that in addition to a
descriptive language a tertium comparationis as a "yardstick" is needed, i.e.
common criteria to which facts and matters given in different countries may be
projected to make them comparable. To come to an agreement on criteria and
procedures of comparison is yet another initial concern for research on
European vocational affairs - now on a meta-meta-level.
The three central notions giving the name to COST Al 1 are some of the
main important candidates to function as criteria of comparison. Within the
different European languages they have already shared intuitive meanings
thanks to their common root in Latin language. But looking closer at the way
they are actually used a wide variety of connotations can be discovered which
again is not only a matter of language but also of culture and tradition. The
Feasibility Study (Achtenhagen/Nijhof/Raffe 1995) has made successful
endeavours to come to clearer concepts of flexibility, mobility and
transferability. Differentiations in meanings and suggestions for definition
offered in this study form a useful platform for starting off for integration
efforts. But nevertheless, it is clear that even with respect to these central
concepts we are still in need of more terminological precision.
Paradoxical enough, it might be that non-native speakers of English take
advantage from their distance to colloquial connotations provoked by English
notions in native speakers. For them notions to be used in a comparative
terminology are more likely to have a somewhat artificial or technical
character and may be u