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In Practice: The Importance of Practitioner Research in Vocational Education

Gregson, Margaret (2020) In Practice: The Importance of Practitioner Research in Vocational Education. Education Sciences, 10 (3). e79. ISSN 2227-7102

Item Type: Article

Abstract

This article presents the background to and rationale for a practice-focused model of educational change and improvement. In contrast to autocratic top-down models, this democratic and pragmatic approach begins with the educational concerns of teachers. In this model, responsibility and accountability for educational improvement is shared between policy professionals, the university team and sector practitioners. Contributions from the literature explore the question of the nature and purpose of educational practice; how concepts of educational practice influence curriculum design and content in programmes for the initial and continuing professional development for teachers of vocational education; and how these can enhance or inhibit the improvement of educational practice. Drawing upon case study examples from a national programme of university-supported practitioner research in England, results illustrate how this model offers insights into ways of increasing research capacity and achieving sustainable improvements in educational practice. It concludes that programmes of university-supported practitioner research, which encourage and enable teachers to engage in the systematic investigation of educational practice, can realize educational improvements which other approaches to educational evaluation and improvement (including external inspection regimes) struggle to do. It invites politicians and policy professionals to consider potential applications of this approach in other national systems of vocational education.

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Additional Information: ** From MDPI via Jisc Publications Router ** History: accepted 18-03-2020; pub-electronic 20-03-2020. ** Licence for this article: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: vocational education, practice, practitioner research, university-supported practitioner research, practice-focused research, educational research
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SWORD Depositor: Publication Router
Depositing User: Publication Router

Identifiers

Item ID: 11873
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10030079
ISSN: 2227-7102
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/11873

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Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 25 Mar 2020 09:16
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2020 11:04

Contributors

Author: Margaret Gregson

University Divisions

Faculty of Education and Society > School of Education

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