In the reformation of the Vocational educational programs in 2014 the student progression in learning became a central objective clarified in the Act of each educational program. Since the definition and understanding of the term progression is not explicitly described for the Vocational educational program the aim of this Master Thesis is to answer this question:
How can we understand the term progression and operationalize it regarding Vocational educa-tion for the teachers to gather information about and incorporate in their daily teaching practice the student progression in learning?
To answer the question a qualitative inquiry based on an interview with teachers from Bygholm Agricultural College is conducted with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach to the analysis.
Based on a review of Danish literature some central suggestions on how to understand the term progression is found in existing theory.
From a learning perspective progression can be understood as a cognitive process illustrated as a growing spiral where progression in learning will appear as wider and deeper knowledge and abil-ity to work on the subject.
From a perspective of assessment progression is often described with Blooms cognitive taxonomy. This taxonomy consists of six categories describing the student cognitive behavior. The student can behave according to all categories at all times of the learning process, but in a more and more complex way solving more and more complex tasks. This way of understanding progression can also be illustrated with a spiral.
From a practical and participation perspective progression can be understood as the student abil-ity to take part in the profession processes they meet in real life or on vocational training as part of the education.
Based on these central understandings found in theory a deductive analysis of data from the inter-view is conducted. The main conclusion on how teachers at Bygholm understand progression is that they combine the perspectives of learning and assessment. They understand progression as a growing spiral picturing the widening og deepening of knowledge by working with all categories of the Bloom taxonomy throughout the teaching or the different levels of the education.
Surprisingly the teachers do not understand progression from a practical and participation per-spective even thou the vocational educational program was expected to especially represent this perspective.
Based on data from the interview it was not possible in this Master Thesis to operationalize the term progression. The teachers find it very difficult to express, what to look for, when they are observing the student progression. Especially progression in more complex competences the teachers have very few ideas on how to measure. And this observation is also found in existing international research. Operationalizing and measuring student progression in complex compe-tences is difficult and we generally lack methods to measure them without splitting the complexity into more simple knowledge or skills that are measurable.
The teachers at Bygholm know of the well described methods to work in teaching with formative assessment such as feedback and Porte folio. They also try to work as a professional learning team. But this Master Thesis point out the need of further operationalizing the term progression to get the full outcome of working with student progression in formative assessment.
An action learning based project is introduced as an appropriate method to develop both the teacher professional learning team and at the same time working in practice with student progres-sion. The action is based on ongoing operationalizing progression as what to look for in student activity when you want to measure progression in complex competences. The method “small measures” is introduced as a new way of working with competences such as interpersonal skills. It is a feedback method based on clearly formulated learning objectives or desired student behavior that students themselves can evaluate.
For my pedagogical leadership the most essential focus will be on facilitating the teachers in the action learning based project and on the efforts on working as a professional learning team. I also focus on including the teachers on deciding the learning objectives and developing points in the active learning project. Teachers must be included in deciding to become involved with the ideas and goals of the project. I have my focus on developing relational capacity in the organization as well.