This paper is concerned with the connections between new curricula and the processes of teaching and learning in vocational education and training (VET). It investigates curricular changes in college-based VET in Germany and England and aims to find out to what extent these changes have resulted in innovative teaching and learning processes. The paper outlines the work of a project funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance. In practice actors adapt new curricular concepts within the contexts of their particular colleges. This means that implementation processes change the political reforms because the interpretation and reception of political reforms in vocational colleges vary to a substantial degree. It may even be the case that the educational regulations and institutional rules mean that innovative learning and teaching cannot develop. Therefore, the ways in which innovative learning and teaching designs are developed on the basis of new curricula or qualifications is very much an open question. In order to answer this question, a range of other questions need to be addressed: • How are curricular reforms received and interpreted in college-based training contexts? • What role do the actors at college level play in implementing curricular reform? • How do curricular reforms need to be formulated in order to result in more innovative teaching practices? • Which innovative designs of teaching and learning developed at college level have resulted from new curricular and qualification structures? • Which factors at college level foster or hinder the development of innovative teaching designs? The project is based on two preliminary research projects on the implementation of innovation in VET conducted over the last few year (see Ertl & Kremer, 2006, 2005a and b. It also builds on extensive work in the areas of Implementation of new curricular concepts on vocational education in Germany (Ertl & Sloane, 2006 and Kremer, 2003). In the English context, the project builds on the work of Fullan (2000), Lockwood & Gooley (2001) on innovation processes in education. Further, the project makes use of numerous on curricular and qualification reform in England (see for instance, Hayward et al., 2006).

The main methods applied in the investigation are: questionnaires and interviews with teachers, lecturers, principals and trainees, as well as structured observations of teaching and learning processes. In order to compare the findings from the two countries systematically, the project uses the problem-based approach, as developed in comparative educational research (cf. Holmes, 1965 and 1988). The methods used and the main sequences of the investigations and comparisons can be summarised as follows: • Analysis of the concept of ‘didactic innovation’ • Questionnaire survey of lecturers at vocational Colleges in Germany and FE Colleges in England • Observation of Teaching and Learning practices in College-based contexts • Interviews with lecturers • Summative comparison and documentation

The central assumption of this project is that innovative curricula can potentially result in more effective teaching and learning arrangements. In order to test this assumption, the project compares a number of recent curricular changes and their effect college-based VET contexts in the two countries. By doing this, country-specific mechanisms of implementing innovations are detected and possible lessons for creating and managing curricular innovation in college-based contexts developed.