The assessment of vocational workplace-based qualifications in England relies on human assessors (raters). These assessors observe naturally occurring, non-standardised evidence, unique to each learner and evaluate the learner as competent/not yet competent against content standards. Whilst these are considered difficult to measure, this study…

Socio-constructivist perspectives on adult education, as well as many practitioners in the field, assume that the teacher's interpersonal attitudes influence the process of knowledge construction on the part of the participants. The aim of this paper is to contribute to an empirical evaluation of this view, and in particular: (1) to understand…

This paper presents the perception of practitioners of the impact of the Moser Committee recommendations and the Skills for Life agenda it generated. The paper further explores areas of convergence and divergence between practitioners' perceptions and the underpinning values of the Moser Committee recommendations. The study utilised a range of…

The discussion of learning and teaching in this paper is based on data from a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) programme. The research project is investigating the experiences of learning and working in further education colleges in Wales and the data used in…

In this paper we analyse the dynamics of adult participation in part-time education and training throughout the 90s and into the 2000s using data from 14 waves (1992-2005) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We study the volume (stocks) of participation and non-participation and the gross flows between states. This analysis provides a…

The dynamic nature and multiple interpretations of professionalism make any analysis of it as a static, homogenous concept somewhat difficult. Much of the existing body of literature, which explores professionalism from a traditional sociological perspective, is now being challenged by developing concepts of professionalism that support particular…

This paper outlines the main substantive findings from the latest stage of a research programme which began in 1982. The most recent project was designed to provide an interim snapshot through a questionnaire survey of the progress of a group of young men and women whom we have been following since the start of their secondary education when they…