This article examines the effects of synthesising existing theoretical approaches to understanding the effects of adult learning. The paper focuses on aspects of the findings of a small Australian research project that explored the significance of everyday learning in people's lives. One key part of the research involved examining and synthesising…

What constitutes public pedagogy? The term is broad and can be applied in so many situations and settings to the learning that occurs outside of formal schooling. In this article, the author explores how a community event--a painting competition held in a Melbourne suburb's botanic gardens--constitutes public pedagogy. The event centres on…

Federal, State and school-based professional development has become a multi-million dollar educational enterprise in Australia. Yet there are no published models for the making of systems-level professional development policy. Reviewing the literature on the characteristics of effective professional development programs, this paper proposes a…

Course completion and student satisfaction is likely to be influenced by how realistic the expectations of students are when they enroll. This report explores the idea that students' expectations would be more realistic if students have well developed career management competencies. Recent research argues that lack of information is not the…

Course completion and student satisfaction is likely to be influenced by how realistic the expectations of students are when they enrol. This report explores the idea that students' expectations would be more realistic if students have well developed career management competencies. Appended are: (1) Participant Information and Interview Protocol;…

Presents a perspective on vocational learning that proposes that vocational competence is dependent upon dispositional development, which in turn, results in moves towards maturation. Reports research with unemployed adults engaging in vocational training and resulting in four findings. First, while training packages describe assessable outcomes…

This paper argues that the Tertiary and Further Education system in Australia has responded to globalisation in two paradoxical ways; the pro-active response of internationalisation and the reactive response of competency-based training. Competency-based training currently has a strangle hold on the TAFE sector and education has become a process…