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Research Online Archive

January 2012

Reports

Truth, Lies and the Internet: A report into young people’s digital fluency
While young people may be very comfortable with the process of using the range of technologies available, they are not as skilled when it comes to sifting through data to find reliable sources for their needs. Often they do not have enough digital literacy to be able to make informed judgements. This Demos research looked at the ‘digital fluency’ of digital natives aged 12 to 18 in England and Wales by speaking to both them and their teachers.

December 2011

Reports

Trends in young people's wellbeing and the effects of the school-to-work transition (free registration is required)

As part of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth, the participants are asked questions about their perception of their satisfaction with their lives. The answers are then analysed to ‘explore the link between education, employment and well-being’.

 

Understanding the worklessness dynamics and characteristics of deprived areas

This report from DWP looks at patterns of worklessness in deprived areas. The methodology was different to the usual approach in that it used individual data on employment transitions to try and answer some of the unanswered questions about why people in deprived areas are unemployed. The period studied was 2004 to 2007 and examined the whole of the UK. One interesting aspect of the report is to see how areas that were defined as deprived moved in and out of that definition over the study period.


Tweeting for teachers: how can social media support teacher professional development?

Although this report was written for school teachers, there is much that can be extrapolated by those who feel a little uncertain about working with the new social media technologies like twitter. One of the messages from this report appears to be that curious teachers are more effective teachers because they take time to learn about new technologies and how they will allow them to be more effective, professional teachers and communicators.


Growing up in Northern Ireland

Over a period of 12 years post-ceasefire, 18 young people’s lives were followed and this report presents the findings. This study was part of a larger longitudinal study called Inventing Adulthoods which showed were the gaps were in terms of government policy and service delivery. Many of the issues raised by these young people will also be familiar to us here in Scotland.


A dynamic nucleus: Colleges at the heart of local communities

NIACE, the Association of Colleges and The 157 Group along with the independent Commission on Colleges in England commissioned a study to establish how colleges could do ‘more with less’ and respond to the needs of their learners and their communities. The main aim of the Commission was to understand how colleges added public value to communities as ‘leaders of learning’. Scottish readers will many parallels with our current situation.

 

College Regionalisation – Proposals for implementing Putting Learners at the Centre

This is the companion consultation, concentrating more on restructuring the sector on a regional basis, to Putting Learners at the Centre the pre-legislative paper from the Scottish Government (issued in September).


What prospects for mobility in the UK? A cross-national study of educational inequalities and their implications for future education and earnings mobility

The Sutton Trust was a research partner in this study of education inequality and its effects on educational mobility and future income/earnings. The study compares 10 countries, including the UK, and measures how parental socioeconomic advantage is transmitted from one generation to the next.

November 2011

Reports

New directions: young people’s and parents’ views of vocational education and careers guidance

City and Guilds commissioned a piece of research that explored young people’s – and their parents’ – perception of vocational education, how they make their choices about a career or vocation and what IAG they require to make these decisions. Although this was with English young people some of the findings are easily extrapolated to a Scottish context as some of the participants were in the MCMC and BME groups.


Review of Higher Education governance

The consultation responses have now been made available. (Note: as at 4 November 2011 many of the hyperlinks to responses were not working.)


Consultation around the common core of skills, knowledge and values for those working with children, young people and families responses

This publication presents the responses to the consultation, which asked about the common core of skills and knowledge required for working with young people and their families.

October 2011

Education at a glance – OECD indicators
This annual publication (497 pages) looks at the state of education across the 34 OECD member countries. One notable message is that we must invest in education ‘not just financially but also in the less-quantifiable ways that make societies great’. From the data provided the UK is falling slightly behind the other OECD countries with 5.7% GDP investment in education against the OECD member average of 6.1% of GDP. Note: there is very little about vocational education in this publication. It is available in sections so it is possible to look just at tables/sections of interest rather than the whole publication.

Five Aspect reports have been published by Education Scotland:

Self evaluation and internal review in Scotland’s colleges
It is almost 20 years since incorporation and all colleges now have developed systems that allow them to self-evaluate, reflect and quality assure their provision. This activity is formally recorded so that it is part of the quality cycle. The report looks at the systems that work best and are sector-leading as well as identifying the areas for improvement.

Social subjects in Scotland’s colleges
Aspect reports identify the good and sector-leading practice across the sector and indicate where improvements might be made. This report covers a range of social subjects but does not include Care as this is the subject of a separate report. Significant numbers of these learners are ‘second-chance’ learners and will be en route to higher education. Articulation pathways and external input from universities is therefore an area that requires careful consideration and appropriate action.

Care in Scotland’s colleges
This publication reports on the findings from the evaluation of the wide range of disciplines that fall under the ‘Care’ label but ‘particular emphasis has been given to the general areas of childcare and early years; social care; and health care’. Care programmes in colleges account for a quarter of the funded activity in colleges in Scotland. This area has become even more important as the population demographics change and workforce requirements adjust accordingly.

Construction crafts in Scotland’s colleges
Through a series of college field visits (with learning and teaching observations), telephone interviews, meetings with employers and focus groups the authors gathered a picture of provision for these trades across the sector. The report details the strengths found and areas for identified areas for improvement.

Performing arts in Scotland’s colleges
The report presents an evaluation of the college programmes that result in vocational qualifications in the performing arts (which are offered at levels 4 to 8 of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) ). It is clear that while there are many strengths in the provision there are also some areas where further development is required. Performing arts provision broadly covers 4 areas: dance, musical theatre, acting and music. Thirty one of the colleges currently offer performing arts in some forma and of them, 12 provide significant amounts of provision.

Putting Learners at the Centre – Delivering our Ambitions for Post-16 Education
The Scottish Government has published its pre-legislative paper, which outlines the role that the Government has for post-16education and posits the consultation questions for which it would like responses.

September 2011

The role of career adaptability in skills supply
This report from UKCES explores what is being done to prepare young people for the workforce now and what needs to be done to reskill current workers for the future. The report examines how careers support services can help people to engage with lifelong learning and determine how best to acquire the skills they need to remain in the workforce for as long as possible: career adaptability.

Learning a living: A report into apprenticeships and reducing youth unemployment
As youth unemployment moves up the Government agenda due to the worrying increases in the number of 16-24 year olds who are unemployed, new national approaches are being considered. This report posits that if more young people were enrolled in apprenticeships then the spin-offs would be significant.

Preparing learners in Scotland’s colleges for employment or further study
This EducationScotland (HMIe) report looks at how well colleges prepare learners for employment and how well colleges prepare learners for further study. The report evaluates how colleges use sources of intelligence to plan provision versus the needs of employers and how well learners are prepared for employment or further study.

Review of post-16 education and vocational training in Scotland
This is the output from the review of post-16 education that was undertaken by Willy Roe.

July 2011

Reports

Work, life and VET participation amongst lower-paid workers (free registration required)

It’s well known, isn’t it, that poor pay and low literacy skills go together and if you improve skills of the low paid then you transform their lives. Or is that true? This report from Australia is the product of three years research into the participation of low-paid workers in VET and the outcomes of that upskilling. One of the conclusions reached is that upskilling is not always appropriate or relevant to low paid workers. Nor can they be lumped together in a homogenous group because their circumstances can vary greatly. What is clear is that the training provided needs to be targeted, relevant and essential to the job role and hopes should not be artificially raised that ‘training’ will lead to a better job or higher income.


Young people, alcohol and influences

This Joseph Rowntree Foundation report looked at young people aged between 13 and 16 years old. The study looked at the wide range of influences that cause young people to drink under-age on a regular basis. The report concludes that it is possible to intervene successfully at critical points to prevent young people drinking excessively and too frequently but a well-coordinated intervention is required at all levels.

June 2011

Reports

What impact are your resources making?
There is little point in investing time and money to create online resources if you don’t know who is using them and if they are effective. This updated toolkit from JISC helps you to measure the impact of your online resources in qualitative and quantitative ways.

Experience required: A DEMOS and V report on capability building and work readiness
Although this report is written from an English point of view, many of its themes and the challenges faced are familiar to us in relation to the MCMC group. Despite strategic interventions and targeted action, the NEET challenge does not lessen and this is an attempt to look at the challenge from another perspective in order to effect change.

Pathways: developing the skills of Australia's workforce (free registration required for access)
This paper was commissioned by the Training and Skills Commission in South Australia to look at transitions between the vocational and training systems and higher education. The issue of concern was that not all VET graduates desire to move on to higher education and so need deeper and wider skills at their level. Funding models therefore need to consider how to assist those who want to broaden their skills as well as those who embark on a vertical pathway.

May 2011

Reports

Moving the fence posts: learning preferences of part-time agricultural students (free registration required for access)
The Western Sydney Institute was concerned that the numbers of part-time agricultural students had declined and wanted to undertake some research to understand why. The research looked at the learning preferences of this group so that their learning programmes could be better tailored to their needs. Both current and past students participated in the research activities.

Review of employment and skills
This review from UKCES presents the results of the survey undertaken with employers on employment and skills. It looks at how employers and skills providers work together in order to provide training for workers. Please note that this is set in an English context but much of it transfers to a Scottish one.

MCMC figures for April 2011
These are the NOMIS stats for March 2011. There is a comparison with 2009 and 2010 also in each age group.

April 2011

Reports

The role of practitioners in measuring what matters: What can further education learn from other nations and sectors
This report on the situation in England explores the measurement of performance and its importance in benchmarking and assessing public value. Practitioners in England were rarely consulted about the best way to develop performance measures. The hypothesis was that more

Towards a taxonomy for skills
This opinion/discussion paper from City and Guilds argues that the traditional definition of ‘skills’ is not wide enough and contributes to the lack of parity of esteem between college vocational qualifications and university degrees. The paper explores the purpose of skills and uses Blooms Taxonomy to look at examples from other countries to see how a new taxonomy might be constructed in an English context.

At risk youth: A transitory state
This Australian briefing report from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth and NCVER explores the issue of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ transitions of school leavers, post-school study and employment. The report looks at how those who are deemed to be at risk of falling into the MCMC group can be targeted with appropriate, early interventions.
(NB: Registration is required before access is given to this report.)

Count us in: Mind over matter
This HMIe report is the latest in the series that gives the professional view of the agency on how pre-school centres, schools and colleges are implementing, promoting and supporting young people’s mental and emotional well-being.

Effective assessment in a digital age
This JISC paper looks at the importance of assessment in determining students’ understanding and brings together some of the research and good practice that exists in relation to technology-enhanced assessment practice. The paper looks at approaches to introducing and designing digital assessment and feedback and provides some illustrative case studies.

Skills in Scotland 2010
This paper from the Scottish Government presents the results of the Scottish Employer Skills Survey (SESS 2010). The aim of the survey is to identify skills gaps, shortages and the consequences as well as the nature and extent of training paid for by employers. (This survey used to carried out by Futureskills.)

Statistics Publication Notice: Lifelong Learning Series: Higher Education Students and Qualifiers at Scottish Institutions 2009-10
This updated statistics publication from the Scottish Government provides information on the students and qualifiers at Scottish institutions in AY 2009-10.