Purpose - This study explores the role of previous occupational identity in the formation of the (new) teacher identity of vocational teachers. The focus is on how vocational teachers discover their teaching identity, how they describe the connection between their previous occupation and teacher identity and how they describe a competent member of the teaching community.

Design/methodology/approach - The theoretical approach is inspired by Communities of Practice (CoP) theory. More specifically, the realignment between socially demanded competence in the profession and personal experience as well as identification with the teaching community are discussed. The research material comes from 14 interviews with vocational teachers in different disciplines.

Findings - Findings indicate first that the process of professional identity (trans)formation was initiated by finding one's teaching self when the individuals became aware of their interest in teaching by discovering that they had already achieved some sort of teaching-related competence. Second, individuals had been connecting their professional identities – finding common competence between their previous occupation and the teaching role. Third, vocational teachers experienced legitimising their competence and their new identity with reference to what their new CoP instructed as important competence (regime of competence).

Originality/value - While teachers' vocational competence is not scrutinised, their teaching competence needs to be constantly proved. This imbalance often leads to teachers returning to an aspect of their identity that is well established – their vocational competence. Looking back to their occupational competences constitutes a realignment backwards, when teachers attempt to serve their new professional goal by drawing on old competence.

Vocational teachers have a key role in the professional growth of vocational students, making their competence an important factor in the quality of VET. This study explores how principals and vocational teachers identify important and achieved competencies in relation to vocational teachers’ work. The data was collected through an online questionnaire, centred in two types of competence, competence important for teachers (important competence) and competence they consider they have already developed (achieved competence). For each type, a set of 27 competencies was evaluated on a Likert-scale by 370 participants, including both teachers and principals. The statistical analysis was primarily descriptive. The findings indicated that good communication with students, assessment of students’ knowledge, skills and abilities, and creating conditions for learning, are the three most important and achieved competencies in VET teachers’ work. On the contrary, previous teaching experience, working experience with adults and migrants, and the competence related to recruitment of students and marketing of the school, were seen as the least important and achieved ones. Different actors, meaning principals and teachers, reached an agreement on these findings. Future research should look into the reasons behind the selection of specific competence as important and the processes of competence development.      

This article focuses on ‘successful migrants’, who have succeeded in gaining employment in Sweden in their previous vocational area. The aim is to describe factors on various levels – individual, organisational and national – that have facilitated migrants’ way back to work as well as their inclusion at workplaces. Twenty migrants and five employers/mentors were interviewed. The overarching theme of facilitating factors concerns language proficiency, individual factors, enabling frameworks, and supporting persons and networks. The migrants’ own ambitions and motivations, and the support they got in interpersonal encounters were especially emphasised as important. In the migrants’ narratives, a central theme in relation to the theoretical perspective was how to deal with threats to their social and professional identity in the new country. For them, maintaining a positive self-image was key to the strength needed to fight for a return to working life. People in the environment were important in this struggle – for positioning them as competent persons and for offering support.

While performing various academic work, such as writing a bachelor’s thesis, are known to be challenging for university students, less is known about students’ expectations in this regard.

Aim: The aim was to describe students’ expectations of the upcoming process of writing a bachelor’s thesis.

Design: The study employed an explorative, qualitative approach with a single, written open-ended question design.

Methods: The data were collected consecutively 2013–2016 in class. A total of 93 final-year students volunteered and provided hand-written accounts which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The students’ accounts revealed three generic categories of expectations: Gaining professional knowledge and competency, Planning and organizing the work, and Taking stock of personal resources. Writing a bachelor’s thesis was a new challenge for most of the students and the answers testify to mixed feelings about the upcoming work and its supervision.

Conclusions: The nursing students’ expectations included present and future competencies, skills and abilities. In promoting development of transferable skills and knowledge, educators of future health-care professionals would be well advised to invite students to reflect on and discuss, their expectations prior to writing a bachelor’s thesis and similar academic student papers. This study adds to the research on students’ studying and learning in nursing education by bringing to the fore students’ expectations of academic learning tasks as an important aspect to consider in higher education contexts, both nationally and internationally.

Nursing education prepares students for both academia and practice; however, the contribution of writing a bachelor's thesis in learning nursing is overlooked. The aim of the present study was to explore the role of a bachelor thesis as a learning tool in nursing. A total of 15 nursing students were individually interviewed using semi-structured questions. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and the activity theoretical concept of a tool was subsequently applied. The results were reported in accordance with COREQ for qualitative research. The findings identified writing a bachelor's thesis as a ‘Personal tool’ and a ‘Systemic tool for learning nursing’. The personal tool was related to ‘Preparation for patient encounters in working life’ and ‘Discovering bodily mechanisms of disease or health’. The systemic tool was related to ‘Enabling to impact on the organization of work and stakeholders’ and ‘Facilitating knowledge of the links between patient groups and common diseases’. The study discusses and concludes that a bachelor's thesis represents both a personal and a systemic tool that embodies nursing knowledge, preparing students for their future work as registered nurses. An implication for contemporary nursing is that a bachelor's thesis may serve as a boundary-crossing tool that transcends the school, workplace, and even society.

Vaikuttava ammatillinen pedagogiikka on Haaga-Helia ammattikorkeakoulussa uusi tutkimusalue, josta intressi tälle artikkelille sai alkunsa. Ammatillisen koulutuksen tutkimuksen nykytilakatsaukselle on kuitenkin laajempi tarve. Vaikuttavan ammatillisen pedagogiikan tutkimuksella tarkoitetaan työelämälähtöistä soveltavaa tutkimusta ja kehittämistä. Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ammattikasvatustieteen, ammatillisen koulutuksen ja pedagogiikan tutkimuksen nykytilaa yliopistoissa ja ammatillisissa opettajakorkeakouluissa. Tarkastelimme vuosien 2018–2020 aikana julkaistuja väitöskirjoja sekä merkittäviä tutkimus- ja kehittämishankkeita Suomessa ja peilasimme niitä vastaaviin julkaisuihin Ruotsissa ja Norjassa. Suomen tilannetta käsitellään laajemmin ja vertailu naapurimaihin syventää ammattikasvatustieteen ja vaikuttavan ammatillisen pedagogiikan ymmärrystä sekä tuo näkyväksi uusia kiinnostavia näkökulmia. Esimerkiksi Norjassa rahoitetaan enemmän opetussuunnitelmien työelämävastaavuuksien tutkimusta ja uudistuksien vaikuttavuustutkimusta kuin Suomessa. Ammattikoulutuksen ala- tai aluekohtaisia vertailevia tutkimuksia on Suomessa julkaistu niukasti. Ruotsissa ja Norjassa on useita ammattikasvatuksen alaan kuuluvia professuureja. Suomessa väitöskirjoja ohjataan monessa eri yliopistossa, mutta ammatillisen koulutuksen, kasvatuksen ja pedagogiikan tutkimus voisi olla systemaattisempaa.

Internationalisation is a common aim of official educational policy in many countries. People with different beliefs, values, and lifestyles cannot avoid interacting with each other in multicultural societies and in a globalized world. While persons work with different people in multicultural environments, they have to challenge their behaviour and practices and learn new ways of thinking and interacting.

In Finland, immigration has increased in recent decades. An equal quality of life andposition for immigrants is a vocational and social challenge. In our article, we examinethe challenges adult immigrants face in Finland regarding the recognition of professional qualifications, skills and employment and their children's access to education. Asa result, we have two different points of view: adults in working life and young peoplein school transitions. The research materials were collected through interviews and surveys. The results suggest that adult immigrants usually have their skills recognised inthe labour market only when the person obtains an overlapping or supplementary vocational training in Finland. Adolescents’ school transitions are tied to at least three typesof factors: the young people themselves, issues related to the community, and servicesoffered by society. The authorities reiterated the importance of language skills, the motivation, and community services, while the young people promoted the social community: the importance of friends and families. The results highlight the importance of cooperation between the authorities, homes and young people so that young people canreceive support at special stages in their lives.

Although research on evidence-based practice (EBP) has been available for several decades, EBP has not been implemented successfully by nursing management. Evidence-based practice is a key area of knowledge management (KM), and EBP and KM are subject to similar challenges. However, there has only been limited research on KM and EBP within the context of nursing. The aim of this study was to describe and explain nurses’ perceptions of their own readiness for EBP, and their perceptions of the managerial and organizational support for enhancing competency and EBP. The study design was a cross-sectional survey carried out in accordance with STROBE. Data were collected from 125 nurses using two international instruments and one instrument developed for this study. The data were then analyzed using descriptive and multivariate statistics. Less than half of the nurses reported that their practices were often evidence-based, and only a third had often searched for evidence. The nurses perceived the weakest areas of management leadership to be arranging resources, solving problems and encouraging discussion in the context of EBP, and anticipation of nurses’ competency needs, ensuring competency and intervening when competency was inadequate in the context of KM. The results emphasize the need to develop nurse training, management leadership and an operational environment conducive to KM and EBP. Managers should take a more visible role in mentoring nurses for EBP and in identifying the developmental needs of nurses’ competencies.

Aim

To describe factors facilitating or inhibiting the development of registered nurses' competency and nurse leader's role in knowledge management.

Background

Nurses' competency directly influences patient safety and the quality and effectiveness of patient care. Challenges of nurse leaders in knowledge management include acquiring, assessing and utilising current knowledge and assessing and enhancing competency.

Evaluation

A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, SCOPUS and ERIC databases in April 2015. The search identified 18 relevant research articles published between 2009 and 2015. The quality of the studies was appraised in accordance with study designs.

Key issue

Knowledge management is facilitated by an organisation culture that supports learning, sharing of information and learning together. Leader commitment and competency were factors related to leadership facilitating knowledge management.

Conclusion

Nurse leaders need evidence-based interventions to support shared learning and to create infrastructures that facilitate competence development. Future research is especially needed to evaluate connections between knowledge management and patient outcomes.

Implications for nursing management and leadership

The results of this review can be utilised in enhancing factors to facilitate knowledge management in clinical practice and identifying nurse leaders' role in strengthening nurses' competency.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurse leaders' perceptions and experiences of leading evidence-based practices (EBP).

Background: Leaders can promote EBP in nursing with their own personal example and by striving to renew structures, processes and working cultures. However, previous studies have shown that nurse leaders have tended to be passive with regard to EBP.

Methods: An interview study using general qualitative methods. In total, 33 individual interviews and seven focus groups of leaders were conducted in 2015 and 2017. Data were analysed thematically.

Results: The respondents were unfamiliar with EBP as activities that lead to effective patient care. EBP were described as indistinguishable from other practices, lost and random. Overall, they lacked competence with EBP. The activities of nurse leaders do indicate a tentative commitment to EBP, but their main goals seem to be maintaining the status quo.

Conclusion: Unfamiliarity with EBP reflects adversely on the operations of an entire organisation. The nurse leaders have an opportunity to enhance their understanding with EBP, which will lead to the renewal and improvement of the operating culture and the quality of strategic leadership.

Implications for nursing management: Leaders should take clear responsibility for EBP on the strategic, operational and educational level.

Aim

To describe Finnish nurse leaders’ perceptions of and experiences with knowledge management.

Background

Health science research has traditionally focused on knowledge transfer and research evidence instead of knowledge management, culture and organisational learning. Systematic reviews indicate a lack of awareness about nurse leaders’ activities in knowledge management.

Design

Qualitative interview study according to the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (see Supporting Information Table S1).

Methods

Data were collected at a Finnish public, social and healthcare organisation from 33 persons in 2015 and 2017 through 35 individual interviews and seven focus groups. Data were analysed by thematic analysis.

Results

Nurse leaders’ daily knowledge management activities included assurance of smooth work functions and decisions about sudden changes. When managing knowledge promotion, nurse leaders focused on the near future and served information providers, coaches and developers of operating culture. Anticipatory management of knowledge requirements emphasised nurse leaders’ roles as assessors and visionaries. Tensions while managing knowledge were related to the following: changes in clients’ service needs, insufficient structures and tools to support the assessment and joint development of competence, time and information management, the operating culture, and nurse leader support. Participants reported only few attempts to solve tensions and therefore little to no transformative agency.

Conclusion

Nurse leaders prioritised daily knowledge management over management of knowledge promotion and anticipatory management of knowledge requirements. Knowledge management in nursing is a complex task requiring a command of different kinds of agency and related leadership styles. The structures, processes and tools supporting knowledge management should be developed to ensure that activities are systematic.

Relevance to clinical practice

A description of nurse leaders’ perceptions of and experiences with knowledge management could improve recognition of nurse leaders’ agencies for knowledge management, identification of related tensions and application of lessons learned from tensions. This description could also promote nurses’ professional competence and supplement nurse leaders’ training.

The publication contains the abstracts of the papers and key note spechess presented at the VII Stockholm International Conference on Vocational Education & Training held on May 7-8, 2018.

This book is the second one of the serie Emergent Issues in Research on Vocational Education & Training. It is an outcome of the international networking of the research group VETYL (Vocational Education & Training/ Yrkeskunnande och Lärande), at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden.

In May 2012 the group organized the first Stockholm International Conference in VET, an academic event that has ever since been organized yearly following the modality of invited papers. The book contains selected papers presented in the sessions of the conference held 7 and 8, May 2018. The contributions depict research within the Vocational and Training held in different national contexts as well as cross-national issues.

This volume illustrates well the diversity of research in the eld in a way that is not frequently available in the literature today. The content is of interest for a diversity of readers including under-graduate students, in particular students in initial and in-service teacher training programs for VET, post-graduate students, researchers and policy makers.

This book is an outcome of the international networking of the research group VETYL (Vocational Education & Training/Yrkeskunnande och Lärande), at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden.

In May 2012 the group organised the first Stockholm International Conference in VET, an academic event that has ever since been organised yearly following the modality of invited papers. The book contains selected papers presented in the sessions of the conference held 8 and 9, May 2017. The contributions deal with a wide range of areas of research within the Vocational and Training field in different national contexts as well as cross-nationally.

The book illustrates well the diversity of research in the field in a way that is not frequently available in the literature today. The content is of interest for a diversity of readers including under–graduate students, in particular students in initial and in-service teacher training programs for VET, post-graduate students, researchers and policy makers.

This is the third volume of the serie Emergent Issues in Research on Vocational Education & Training. It is an outcome of the international networking of the research group VETYL (Vocational Education & Training/ Yrkeskunnande och Lärande), at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden.

In May 2012 the group organized the first Stockholm International Conference in VET, an academic event that has ever since been organized yearly following the modality of invited papers. The book contains selected papers presented in the sessions of the conference held 7 and 8, May 2018. The contributions depict research within the Vocational and Training held in different national contexts as well as cross-national issues.

This volume illustrates well the diversity of research in the field in a way that is not frequently available in the literature today. The content is of interest for a diversity of readers including under-graduate students, in particular students in initial and in-service teacher training programs for VET, post-graduate students, researchers and policy makers.

This book is the seventh volume in the book series Emerging Issues in Research on Vocational Education & Training. The series is published by the research group VETYL (Vocational Education & Training/Yrkeskunnande och Lärande), at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden. VETYL was created in 2011 with twofold aims: contributing to the advance of knowledge in the intricate area of vocational education and training (VET) and strengthening the research basis of the teacher education program for VET that is offered at the Department of Education, Stockholm University. The Swedish term “yrkeskunnande och lärande” in the name of the research group translates as “vocational knowing” and indicates one of the major research concerns of the group.The research book series started primarily as dissemination venue of selected papers, after a peer review process first presented at the international conferences organized yearly since 2012 by our research group VETYL.

The conference has had two aims: becoming a forum for sharing state of the art research in the field of VET and serving as a forum for networking and cooperation. The Stockholm International Conference of Research in VET is one of the major academic events organised in Europe as part of the European Network for Vocational Education and Training (VETNET).Even though the primary source for our research book series has for long been the conference's papers, at present the research book series is open to contributions of other scholars in the field regardless of participation in the conference. This is particularly the case in this volume where researchers from different contexts submitted proposals of texts, dealing with different dimensions of the important theme of the role of vocational education and training in inclusion in work life, with specific focus on migrants.The title of this volume Migration and Inclusion in Work Life – The Role of VET is an umbrella for the presentation of research outcomes focusing on a variety of aspects influencing the inclusion in working life and the role that VET plays or could play. The main aim of this volume is to present current research in an area that at the present is getting major attention by policy makers as well as practitioners in Europe and other contexts. Migration and immigrant integration/inclusion has long been a contested issue in national and international politics as well as in research. With migration on the rise globally, integration faces many challenges. Usually, integration is associated with establishment into the labour market. Getting a job or some kind of employment is taken as a strong indicator of successful integration in the new country.VET, along with other measures, is expected to play a key role in the process of integration of immigrants in the economic and7social life of the host country. Successful inclusion becomes beneficial for all involved by reducing disparities, filling local labour market shortages, and improving livelihoods and social cohesion. VET systems and providers in most immigrant-receiving countries are trying to find effective ways to facilitate migrants’ labour market inclusion by means of specially designed training programs.

The contributions in this volume show a diversity in theoretical frameworks of reference and methodological grounds, ranging from empirically based texts to policy analysis. Even though some of the texts are case studies or national policy analyses they will surely be of interest to an international audience interested in this theme.This volume continues the tradition of our research book series to depict the diversity and complexity of research in the field of vocational education and training. We hope it will meet the expectations of a variety of readers including under-graduate students, in particular students in initial and in-service teacher training programs for VET, post-graduate students, and policy makers.Finally, we would like to thank the reviewers for valuable criticisms that helped to improve the contributions that are finally presented in this book.

The aim of this conceptual paper is to dwell into the ideological and theoretical roots of the concept social exclusion. In vocational education, the concept is often constructed as a vehicle for social inclusion and it is often taken for granted and rarely defined. In addition, we will introduce other concepts related to social exclusion such as concepts of difference, social division, and differential social exclusion. We will also offer some critical observations about the concept such as it ignores the everyday transnational embeddedness and practices of migrants and will discuss the concepts of transnational relations and the structure of opportunity. In concluding remarks, we offer some ideas about the role of VET in relation to social exclusion and inclusion. 

Los profesionales y las instituciones de formación profesional se enfrentan a desafíos debido a los cambios en la vida laboral: aumento del trabajo del conocimiento, la digitalización, la globalización y la necesidad constante de mejora de las prácticas. El objetivo de este artículo es explorar los esfuerzos de cambio organizacional en dos instituciones educativas. El primer caso presenta la escuela de formación profesional en el que el foco del desarrollo era nueva formación para los estudiantes inmigrantes. El segundo caso se presenta el trabajo de desarrollo realizado dentro de la formación de los dentistas y los higienistas. El anclaje teórico y metodológico de los dos casos es la teoría de la actividad histórico-cultural y la investigación trabajo de desarrollo; el último un enfoque desarrollado en la década de 1980 en Finlandia. Se combina la investigación científica, el trabajo de desarrollo práctico y el aprendizaje, llamado aprendizaje expansivo. En los proyectos de investigación de trabajo de desarrollo una de las herramientas teóricas es un modelo de sistema de actividad. La atención del análisis presentado en este artículo se centra en dos elementos del modelo de sistema de actividad: los instrumentos o instrumentalidad y las reglas o constelación de reglas. Parecía que, al menos, el fracaso parcial del trabajo de desarrollo en dos instituciones educativas se debió a la falta de consideración y atención al todo sistémico de las actividades en el proceso de desarrollo, es decir, falta de atención a la actividad de aprendizaje en el contexto multicultural y de la atención al paciente.

This chapter focuses on the concept of integration, which is used in everyday political and academic discussions and has its opponents and defenders. The aim is to explore how it is defined, described and used in studies focusing on skilled immigrants’ integration into the workplace. The chapter is inspired by conceptual analysis and uses conceptual approaches such as everyday, scientific, formal and functional concepts to reflect on the results of the analysis. The results show that integration is not clearly defined in the studies, but assumed that readers know what is meant by it. The process nature of integration is highlighted in the studies, and its many uses such as integration to work community, vocational practices and society. It is concluded that researchers need to be more conscious of their use of the concept of integration and be transparent what do they mean by it.

Vocational education and training (VET) is under reform in many Nordic countries. This article explores uses of developmental work research (DWR) approach in reforming and transforming practices of VET. DWR was initiated in Finland in the 1980s to enhance understanding about learning in organizations. The aim of this article is to elaborate the approach by examining studies made in the field of professional and vocational education and training, and thus to examine potentials and shortcomings of the approach. Eight DWR studies in the field of professional and vocational education and training are summarized, and three of them are elaborated. Contributions of the studies cover new tools, conceptualizations and methods for VET. Shortcomings bring forth researcher’s dual role and lack of evidence on sustainable development after study processes. In conclusion I state that DWR offers rich and solid theoretical and methodological tools for VET researchers. However, they need to develop concepts that combine different dimensions of research, and not to forget to elaborate their study results from societal and individual perspectives.

The purpose of this short paper is to introduce factors that can facilitate or hinder skilled migrants’ access to their previous vocation. The approach employed was based on the literaturereview and some preliminary interviews with the skilled migrants. The results indicate that thefactors are located on different levels; there are individual, organisational and societal factors,which interplay with each other. In addition, the factors have dual nature, and they can bothfacilitate and/or hinder access to vocations. Interviewees have experienced several pathways totheir vocation and the labour market in Sweden. Some have chosen another vocation, and somehave continued their studies to become vocational teachers in their area. To face challenges andto support skilled migrants’ access to their previous vocation and the labour market, actions areneeded on different levels.

Digital competence is an important ability for humanity in the 21st century. The use of technological tools in VET schools has expanded in recent years. Digital technologies cover a wide variety of tools such as computers, robots, learning environments, digital media like blogs, wikis and social media. The aim of the paper is to present for discussion uses of technological tools such as simulations in both high-technology context like Finland and in low technologycontext like Cuba. Technologies can act as a means for inclusion and exclusion to communities in multiple levels: in classrooms, organizations, work places as well as countries. The paper reflects on how the use of technological tools promotes learning vocations and what kinds of challenges do exist with digitalization. Furthermore, we discuss how the use of technological tools changes practices of VET.

This is an open access book which focuses on different aspects of education, employment, and successful integration of migrants in three countries: Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. The chapters in this book reflect on these issues from micro, meso and macro perspectives; some are based on interviews with migrants and people who work with them, others on documents and literature about migration. There are different pathways for skilled migrants to vocations. Some start working in their previous vocations after arriving in the new environment. Some re-enter their professions but on a lower level. Some can re-train themselves in a new vocation, and some will go to further education, as studies in different chapters of this book suggest. Common for successful integration seems to be several intertwined factors: the target language competence, strong motivation and agency, supporting networks and supporting persons, as well as structural opportunities of the new environment. The book’s editorial board takes an eclectic view, hoping to start an academic debate about what ‘successful integration’ means. While discussions about the integration of migrants tend to focus on integration failures, there are millions of migrants, in different countries, who have successfully integrated into their new societies.