"Research Messages 2021" highlights the diverse range of research activities undertaken over the past year by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). In 2021, research was shaped both by the VET (vocational education and training) reform agenda, and issues emerging from the pandemic. The 2021 national VET research…

Increasingly, career-technical and workforce education professionals are challenged with determining the best ways to prepare people for work, when many of the jobs those people will perform do not exist yet. Twenty-first-century work is evolving rapidly, with some jobs going away, other types of work appearing, and many people working in jobs…

Consensus exists that effective teaching includes capacity to adapt instruction to respond to student learning challenges as they arise. Adaptive teachers may keep pace with rapidly evolving youth literacies and students' increasing cultural and linguistic diversity. Teachers are challenged to critically examine pedagogy when some contexts expect…

Large-scale educational reforms are difficult to realize and often fail. In the literature, the course of reform and problems associated with this are frequently discussed. The explanations and recommendations then provided are so diverse that it is difficult to gain a comprehensive overview of what factors are at play and how to take them into…

This paper reports findings from a multi-year study of the scale-up of Reading Apprenticeship (RA), an approach to improve academic literacy by helping teachers provide the support students need to be successful readers in the content areas. WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI), began developing the program in 1995 and has since reached…

On the surface, Tony Wagner's model of innovation differs from Steven Johnson's. One explores the following: how might we develop a nation of innovators? The other offers seven patterns that mark environments for innovation. Drawing from triangulated data, both authors create regularities (not laws) that have new paradigm, scientific credibility.…

In this article, the acceptance of e-learning by teachers of vocational secondary and professional higher education institutions (hereafter: VET teachers) in Estonia has been analysed. The analysis is based on questionnaire study, carried out in 2007. The theoretical framework of the article has been inspired by Everett Rogers' innovation…

In this article, the authors describe how one group of California teacher educators has responded to the call for high school dropout rates with new thinking and action in regard to making teacher preparation a key strategy for reducing the dropout rates, raising student academic achievement, and eliminating the pervasive inequities in learning…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the feasibility of a conceptual model on relations between organisational innovation, knowledge productivity and social capital. It explores processes of knowledge productivity for sustainable innovation and associated HRD implications in knowledge intensive organisations, taking the perspective that…

Work-based learning (WBL), an important part of the 1990s "School to Work" movement, is a core component of the Linked Learning strategy which is now shaping efforts to improve secondary education in California and around the nation in cities such as Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. WBL can include not only classic internships and…

Developing vocational education is a necessity for the economic and social development of high-poverty areas in China. But vocational education in impoverished areas lacks social recognition and faces funding shortages, along with difficulties in recruiting students. Vocational high schools themselves also have shortcomings. This article considers…

The use of computers in the classroom could allow both educators and learners to achieve new capabilities. There are underlying factors, however, that are obstructing the adoption rate of computer use for instructional purposes in schools. This research focused on these problems with a view to determining which critical success factors promote a…

THE USES OF SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND COMPUTER SIMULATION OF SCHOOL ORGANIZATION WERE EXPLORED TO FIND NEW WAYS TO IMPLEMENT INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA. THE USES OF SYSTEMS ANALYSIS RECOMMENDED WERE--(1) TO FACILITATE IMPROVEMENT OF PRESENT INSTRUCTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PLANNING SYSTEMS AND (2) TO EXPLORE THE FEASIBILITY OF PROPOSED SCHOOL ORGANIZATIONS. THE…

Four aspects of educational administration which are relevant to the introduction of new instructional technologies into school systems are discussed. Section I presents a planning change model whose main phases are research, development, adoption and implementation. After this, the following major administrative responsibilities are outlined: 1)…

The world outside schools is changing rapidly with the advances of technology and economic requirements for a 21st-century global citizenry. Today, technology has moved into one's everyday life and is becoming a pervasive part of how one works, learns, and plays. Similarly, networked communications and computer technology have transformed the…