ASSIGNMENT 1 Yek Lang Yieng

ACTICLE REVIEW

Secondary School Students’ Perceptions of, and the Factors Influencing Their Decision-Making in Relation to, VET in Schools

Source: Dalley-Trim, L., Alloway, N., & Walker, K. (2008). Secondary School Students’ Perceptions of and the Factors Influencing Their Decision-Making in Relation to, VET in Schools. The Australian Educational Researcher, Volume 35, Number 2. 

Yek Lang Yieng

MP111129

The topic of this article is “Secondary School Students’ Perceptions of, and the Factors Influencing Their Decision-Making in Relation to, VET in Schools” which written by Trim, L. D., Alloway, N., and Walker, K., from James Cook University in the journal The Australian Educational Researcher. The review will first summarize the article. Secondly, it will briefly analyze the effectiveness of the article’s structure, and investigating how the information been presented. After that, the review will critique the article, evaluating its structure, are the article easy to understand and presented in systematic way and also did the interview answer the purpose of objective.

In this article had summarized the issues in VET in Schools which focus on perception of secondary schools. Authors had give brief about factor influence students in school make decision to enroll VET course. This article is focuses on the students’ perception of Vocational Education Training (VET) in School. The authors aim to highlight the factor influence schools’ student decision making to VET in Schools. This article is addressed about the issue of VET in schools which attracted political attention with current national skills shortage in Australia. Place of study just focus in Australia only. The main factors mention by authors that affecting students of schools choosing VET is the image problem of VET. Current status of Australia is feel shortage of national skills in their country. The authors also list down two main factors for participate in VET in Schools. Firstly, through VET course or subject programs in schools, and through school-based New Apprenticeships (Nguyen, 2005).

The article was introduced with an abstract, which provided the stance or developed by the article as well as a brief overview of main points. Then, start with introduction and brief about VET in schools. The paragraph in the body long and therefore the information in each paragraph was enough. Therefore, this article got 9 headings, which mean that its every part is explained in more detail information according to their purpose of study. As the article described themselves as researcher, then this is a research study conducted by three authors, the article contains of introduction, background of the research, a review of the literature and the methodology as well as the data collection and analysis technique been used in this study. The findings were developed toards the end of the article however in this article are lacking of conclusions. However, the article are able to provide the recommendation or suggestion for solving the problem that face by VET in schools. The references are arrange clear using APA format with the correct citation format. The article’s structure was logically developed overall, with the use of short paragraphs and with bold helping the reader to access the main points easily. However, the article with too much heading and each heading have subheading under each one make the reader confuse which are the main issues discussed. Besides that, the heading of the article of finding part is under question form, the reader will hardly to predict which of the headings is refer to or answer to the research objective.

After a detailed background review of the VET in schools and the numerous studies of it, the author turns their attention to the main focus of the study which is an original qualitative analysis of secondary School students’ perception of VET in schools. The data is taken from 340 students which from different socioeconomic and geographical demographic across Australia. The interview was conducted using semi-structured interviews to answer the issue by using interview protocols, however, the reader are confuse in their protocol and different question in findings. Findings should be using more clearer language or statement  of headings, so that, reader can easily catch what study mostly discuss.

The authors able to point out several major findings but in the finding, I saw that the authors only ask about the meaning of VET or the term. When want to know about the perspective about VET in school, we cannot simply ask about the surface of the term but their knowledge of VET as well. They did support for the why students choose VET in their study, and authors did mention about the benefit of choosing VET and its qualification and about career opportunity and also better future lives to those who pursue in this courses. I agree with the findings of authors that VET is will make us more excited in learning and more enjoyable subject which VET is involve more on practical or skills work compares to others academic subject. Findings also show that authors also pointed out that student did not choose VET in their secondary schools because of negative perceptions and  another reason is low status or image of VET in Australia was generally poor (The Guardian, 2008 & Abdul, et al., 2011). Recommendation given by the article are not enough to improve the VET image which authors also need to take consideration on parents, community, teachers, and education officers where this people play an important role to influence students to enroll VET in or not. School infrastructure, curricular reforms, teacher qualification and role, and wages associated with VET also need to take into consideration to facing the challenge of image problem in VET in School (VETis).

In conclusion, this article presents interesting findings from the authors’ own thorough study of the student’s perception of VET in school and their decision making to take part VET as their choice of study and future career path. However, the authors failure to explain findings of heading in simple terms. I would agree with the authors when authors states that re-design and deliver the VETis curricula are needed on the end. The article has therefore contributed valuable information and understanding about the factor influence the decision-making on VET issues.    

References:

1)   Abdul, et al., (2011). Image and Students Loyalty Towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Journal of Technical Education and Training. Vol.3, No. 1, ISSN 2229-8932.

2)   Anlezark, A., Karmel, T., & Ong, K. (2006). Have school Vocational Education and Training Programs been Successful? Adelaide: NCVER.

3)     Dalley-Trim, L., Alloway, N., Patterson, A., & Walker, K (2007). Vocational Education and Training in Schools: Career Adviser’ Perceptions and Advising Practices. Australian Journal of Career Development, 16(1), 29-36.

4)   Nguyen, N. (2005). Australian Vocational Education and Training Statistics: VET in Schools 2003. In NCVER, Australian Vocational Education and Training: Research messages 2004. Adelaide; NCVER.

5)      The Guardian (2008). Parents Stop Children Choosing Vocational Route. Tuesday March 11.