The Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Learning: Understanding learners and learning

This study examines how learners and the processes of learning are understood and presented in a sample of courses leading to the attainment of the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training (since replaced by the new Certificate IV in Training and Assessment). It considers the implications of these findings for the development of teaching and learning in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia.

• The Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training plays a significant role in promoting views about teaching and learning in the VET sector and is highly regarded by the graduates surveyed. The certificate promotes a strong learner-centred understanding of teaching and learning and emphasises the adult status of learners and the place of experience and interaction as central features of the learning process.
  
  
• Attention to learner needs and characteristics is emphasised in the courses examined leading to a certificate IV. This is largely achieved through the application of models of learning styles and by raising awareness of the diverse nature of learners in VET. Unfortunately, the learning styles frameworks often appear to be used uncritically, leaving open the potential for stereotyping of learners. Other characteristics (for example, ethnicity) that might also impact on preferred ways of learning need to be considered.
  
  
• Understandings of learning promoted through the new Certificate IV in Training and Assessment need to draw more extensively on ideas which emphasise the importance of learners making sense of their experience and building their knowledge based on these experiences. These approaches also need to emphasise the importance of building knowledge to enhance both individual and corporate performance. This is essential in developing workforce capabilities and meeting the needs of contemporary workplaces. It also helps to promote lifelong learning.
  
  
• Ongoing debate and critical reflection among VET practitioners are needed to promote the development of workplace-centred, learner-centred and attribute-focused learning in VET.

The Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training has been fundamental to efforts to promote quality learning in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Despite the central role this qualification has played in shaping ideas about learners and learning, there has been little research undertaken into how they are presented in the programs leading to its attainment. This is the focus of this study. The findings remain relevant even though the certificate has recently been replaced by the new Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. This is because views of training, teaching and learning in VET are slow to change.

This study was specifically designed to gather data on the ways in which learners and the process of learning are constructed, understood and embedded in courses that lead to the attainment of the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training. The research objectives were to:

• examine how learning and the characteristics of learners are represented in documentation used in courses leading to the attainment of the Certificate IV Assessment and Workplace Training
• analyse how teachers and trainers delivering the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training understand the process of learning and the characteristics of learners likely to be encountered in VET contexts
• analyse how recent graduates from the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training courses understand learners and learning
• examine how the understanding of learners and learning derived from courses leading to the attainment of the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training affects the VET sector's goals of embracing a wide range of learner needs across diverse contexts and promoting lifelong learning.

The study involved an analysis of 16 case studies in South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Seven of these sites were public registered training organisations (four based in capital cities; three in regional areas). The remaining sites comprised nine private registered training organisations—two enterprise-based organisations (both located in capital cities); three communitybased organisations (two in capital city locations; one in a regional area); two commercial training organisations (one in a capital city location; the other regional) and two government-funded organisations located in the higher education sector. The case study sites were therefore spread across a number of locations, as well as across a range of different types of registered training organisations. This provides some diversity, while recognising the limits the approach may place on the generalisability of the research findings.

Context matters

The research demonstrated considerable diversity in the types of courses leading to the attainment of the certificate IV qualification, as well as a variety of ways in which the qualification was contextualised to meet the requirements of the organisations and individuals involved. In enterprise contexts (not connected to the education industry per se), the certificate IV was understood as a business process that contributed to wider organisational and strategic goals, with an immediate focus on developing human capital for the enterprise. Learners and learning were understood in context-specific ways; this stands in contrast to circumstances where the audience for the certificate IV was more non-specific, and topics related to learners and learning were approached in more general terms. Within these contexts, various perspectives were offered on:

• the intended curriculum (that is, the pathway or course planned by teachers and trainers offering certificate IV courses. These were based on understandings of the nature of learning to be promoted in VET and interpretations of units of competency from the training package)
• the delivered curriculum (the content and processes used in actual course delivery by teachers and trainers)
• the received curriculum (what graduates from the courses said they had learned about learners and learning from their courses).

The intended curriculum

Teachers and trainers delivering certificate IV courses and their graduates asserted that nature of learning promoted in VET should be 'workplace focused'. Learning was characterised as 'practical', 'hands on'; it should be learner-centred, interactive and acknowledge learners' prior knowledge and skill. Learning was also largely underpinned by conceptions of a split between thinking and doing and the view that learning is a 'product' (that is, competencies) that people attain through transmission from teacher to learner.

The delivered and received curricula in relation to learners and learning

Theoretical explanations of learning were not central to certificate IV courses. Indeed there was some debate amongst providers and graduates that training rather than learning is the sole focus of courses. Where learning was examined, behaviourist and humanistic ¹ understandings were most prevalent, with little attention being paid to constructivist understandings—where learners construct meaning from their learning and make sense of their experiences. Adult learning principles were also used as organising frameworks for understanding learning. In some cases these explanations were accompanied by unhelpful speculation about the nature of adult learners compared with younger, adolescent learners. In addition to content, teachers and trainers offering the certificate IV placed significant emphasis on modelling, thereby enabling graduates to experience learning. These experiences were characterised as adult-like, in which drawing on the experience and prior knowledge and skills of participants, as well as interaction between participants, were key components.

The message that learners in VET are diverse was clearly made to graduates of certificate IV courses. There was less evidence, however, of practical approaches to dealing with this diversity. While there were considerable efforts to model various teaching strategies in courses, there appeared to be little direct instruction provided about the relationship between teaching strategies and their suitability or otherwise for learners who held particular characteristics. The outstanding exception to this was in relation to learning styles. Learning styles appeared to offer an appealing and simple framework for addressing learner differences. Unfortunately, these frameworks often appeared to be used uncritically, leaving open the potential for stereotyping learners without regard for other learner characteristics that might impact on preferred ways of learning. Interviews for the study were also replete with 'shopping lists' of other learner characteristics, some of which would not find support in the literature (for example, wanting value for money) as key factors influencing learning outcomes. In addition, there were fewer references to those characteristics (such as gender, ethnicity, and class) that research has shown impact on learning outcomes.

Graduates were strongly focused on the notion of learner 'needs'. There appeared to be some blurring of the notions of explicit learner needs and inferred learner needs, and a tendency to infer particular needs from the stereotypes; for example, the different needs of adolescent learners compared with those of adults. Graduates tended to view the concept of needs in terms of the knowledge, skills and information required to perform a work role. Needs could also relate to personal characteristics, but these were often labelled as 'special' and most commonly meant language and literacy abilities. Once again, the inherent danger in this thinking is twofold. Firstly, it represents learners as vessels to be filled with whatever teachers and trainers perceive as their needs. Secondly, this perspective places significant pressure on teachers and trainers to 'get it right' in an environment where it is practically impossible to meet the needs of all learners. Furthermore, an inherent contradiction within the structure of the VET system juxtaposes learners' needs with those of industry, as they are presented in training packages.

This study offers some significant empirical evidence about understandings of teaching and learning within the VET sector and how these are enacted in the delivery of the Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment, which is centrally concerned with the preparation of teachers and trainers for the sector.

• Ideas about teaching and learning in VET as they are represented in the certificate IV courses that were a part of this study are eclectic in nature, drawing on perspectives from adult education, psychology and, to a lesser extent, sociology. Some of these ideas about adult learning and experiential learning conform to emerging understandings of learning as 'active individual and social construction of knowledge' (Chappell et al. 2003, p.15). What needs to be reworked is the tendency to view action and thought as discrete entities. Cognitive activity is an essential part of developing workforce capabilities appropriate for the needs of contemporary workplaces; understandings of learning need to reflect this perspective.
  
  
• Notwithstanding the range of sources detailing ideas about teaching and learning, there appeared to be a distinct lack of specific references to the demands of preparing workers for particular industries. The absence of approaches to teaching and learning which take into account specific contexts can leave the way open for simplistic technical approaches (such as the uncritical application of learning styles across all settings) to be applied where there is little existing empirical support to suggest that these interventions will promote quality teaching and learning.
  
  
• How teachers and trainers understand learners is important. How teachers and trainers understand not only the social context in which learners are embedded, but also the effect of 'positioning' certain groups of learners, will play a significant role in shaping ideas about best practice in teaching and learning for the sector.
  
  
• In order to promote debate and dialogue in relation to teaching and learning in the VET sector, policy-makers, teachers and trainers need to move beyond technical discussions on the latest version of the Training and Assessment Training Package. Discussions need to examine ideas on how teaching and learning might embrace the learner-centred, work-centred and attribute-focused approaches now acknowledged as important for the future of the VET sector. Discussions also need to consider more seriously the impact of characteristics such as gender, race and ethnicity on learning, and the ways in which learning might best be understood and organised to take account of these learner attributes.

¹ Behaviourist understandings are concerned with changes to observable behaviour as the products of learning; humanistic understandings emphasise growth and personal development in learning.