Apprenticeship training curriculum: examining its negotiated design and the ensuing effects on learner engagement

ABSTRACT This research presents a detailed investigation of Australian apprenticeship training and the VET curriculum which informs its practice. It uses a conceptual framework of curriculum as being intended, enacted, and experienced to structure the research inquiry. It examines apprenticeships within the baking industry and draws on interviews with 23 design participants throughout the curriculum design process. The study draws on theoretical concepts of learning through participation and acquisition to understand the accumulative effects on the apprentice experience and their subsequent levels of engagement. The research findings make several important contributions towards VET theoretical knowledge. First, the study presents a detailed illumination of the vocational curriculum design process from its conception by governments, through to its implementation by college trainers and its ensuant influence over apprentice learners. Second, the study extends existing workplace learning theories of participation by exemplifying participation as an affordance and an act of agency, as an action that is both passive and active. Third, the study’s findings contribute to socio-political and socio-material conceptions of workplace learning relations, where knowledge is situated and shaped through the influence of contexts, actor relations and material artefacts. Together these findings contribute to existing understandings of apprentice dis-engagement and their decision to leave.