Missing effects of the professionalisation of in-house trainers within vocational education and training: results from a longitudinal study

This article discusses the influence of pedagogical professionalization of in-house instructors on the quality of apprenticeship through reporting the processes and outcomes of a 9 month longitudinal study. Some in-house instructors received a pedagogical training focused on developing skills to support apprentices' work-related learning processes. The quasi-experimental study compared (a) instructors who attended the pedagogical training with instructors who did not and (b) apprentices' self-reports on workplace learning support provided by these two cohorts of instructors. Interview data indicated that instructors who attended a pedagogical training tend to a constructivist view on learning and instruction more than those who did not attend this training. The apprentices report significantly different perceptions of their workplace learning support, but no significant differences in learning motivation, satisfaction of basic needs, learning strategies and vocational competencies. Based on these findings, this contribution discusses opportunities and limitations of such interventions as well as constraints of the research design.