Assessment of vocational knowing: experiences from the Swedish pilot project with upper secondary apprenticeship 2008-2011

In 2008, a pilot project with apprenticeship as an alternative pathway of upper secondary vocational education (USVE) started in Sweden. This paper is based on a follow-up study 2009-2011, funded by the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) focusing on pedagogical aspects of apprenticeship. We interpreted 'pedagogical aspects' as concerning teachers' curriculum work, i.e. the organisation and design of apprenticeship in relation to following aspects: division of labour between school and work; the content; the roles of teacher and supervisor; and follow-up and assessment of students' development regarding vocational knowing in relation to the Swedish national curriculum for each of the programs. In this article, we present results related to assessment in upper secondary VET apprenticeship. The issue for this article is to illuminate conditions for assessment in USVE-apprenticeship, the foci of assessment and the tools used for assessment. According to regulations of apprenticeship, trilateral assessment sessions (teacher-supervisor-apprentice) are to be held regularly for follow-up and, at the end of a course, marking students knowing. As a representative for the education authority, the teacher is responsible for marking, but the supervisor is to provide the teacher with the information needed for follow-up and marking. The assumption is that during these sessions, there will be a dialogue between supervisor, apprentice, and teacher that will contribute to both follow-up and marking. The results presented in this paper build on interviews with teachers, apprentices and supervisors, as well as some audio-recorded trilateral sessions for assessment. Our preliminary results show that these trilateral sessions are one of the critical situations in USVE-apprenticeship. A main result is that assessment was either focused on social and behavioural aspects or on vocational knowing. Which one that dominated was related to firstly, the qualifications of the teacher; secondly, to the division of labour on the workplace; and thirdly, to the local history of USVE-apprenticeship. These results and the consequences of them will be further developed in our article.

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