1.Introduction

Vocational teachers play an important role in supporting their students to prepare for future careers (Andersson and Köpsén, 2018; Dymock and Tyler, 2018). To maintain in-service vocational teachers’ work-life competence and its integration in their school practice, work placement has been implemented in several countries, such as England, Sweden, France, and China, using different labels, like industry release and extended work placement. In our study, work placement is defined as a continuing professional development programme, in which vocational teachers improve their understanding of the industry world through authentic experience.

In China, work placement has been a mandatory programme for in-service vocational teachers since 2016 (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2016). All vocational teachers are required to undertake work placement for at least one month annually. In the past years, the Chinese government, school leaders, and vocational teachers, in particular, have invested a lot in the process of work placement. However, the effect of work placement on teachers’ practice in school is still unclear. In this study, we aim to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of how vocational teachers’ learning experiences with work placement support their practice in school.

2.The effect of learning experience on teachers’ school practice

As the literature on the effect of work placement on vocational teachers’ practice in school is limited, in this section, general teachers’ changes in practice related to other kinds of learning experiences will be reviewed.

2.1Teachers’ changes in school practice

Previous research has mostly employed either teachers’ intended changes or actual changes in practice resulting from learning experiences, with an assumption that teachers’ intentions for practice align with their actual practice. Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that inconsistencies often exist between teachers’ intended changes and their actual changes in practice. Bakkenes et al. (2010) argued that a possible explanation of this gap could be that for actualising behavioural changes, a longer time span is needed.

In addition, teachers’ changes in practice are related to a variety of forms. In the interconnected model of professional growth, Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) approach forms of practice as ‘the domain of practice that is conceived as encompassing all forms of professional experimentation, rather than just classroom experimentation’ (p. 950). Still, most previous studies have concentrated on teachers’ classroom practice, while neglecting the other possible changes in practice within school.

2.2Factors facilitating or hindering teachers’ changes in practice

Although teachers might always expect that their learning experiences could support their practice in school, various factors have been examined, which may facilitate or hinder teachers in making use of their learning experiences. For example, Chaaban (2017) identified five barriers that prevented English teachers from implementing the issues learned from school-based support programs in their classrooms, such as time restraints and students’ limited language abilities.

To understand the factors influencing teachers to perform changes in practice, the conceptual framework of transfer of learning can be employed. Making changes in practice after learning experiences can be understood as transferring what teachers have learned to their school workplace. The factors affecting individuals’ transfer of learning have commonly been classified into three domains, including the learner characteristics, intervention design, and work environment (Blume et al., 2010; De Rijdt et al., 2013).

Based on the previous research, to obtain an in-depth understanding of vocational teachers’ professional development during work placement, we propose two research questions:

Q1. What are vocational teachers’ intended and actual changes in their school practice based on work placement?

Q2. What factors do vocational teachers perceive as facilitating or hindering for implementing their changes in school practice?

3.Methods 3.1Participants and data collection The data for this study was collected from a sample of 18 secondary vocational teachers. All participants undertook work placement for at least one month during the summer break of 2020. The participants were individually interviewed twice by the first author. The first-round interviews were carried out within one week after completing work placement, and they were focused on teachers’ planned changes in their school practice, while the second-round interviews were conducted at the end of the semester following work placement, which were related to both teachers’ actual changes in practice and factors influencing them to realise changes. 3.2Coding procedure and analysis To answer the first research question, the two interview transcripts of each participant were coded and analysed. To begin with, the fragments of the first transcripts relating to teachers’ planned changes in their school practice were labelled. Next, the labels were merged into categories based on the main issues that teachers would like to perform. There were six categories generated. Then, the categories were clustered into the levels of the school, collegial, and classroom practice. The Cohen’s kappa with a 95% confidence interval was 0.91, which indicated that the results of the categories had high reliability. Subsequently, these levels and categories were applied as a coding scheme to guide the coding procedure of the transcripts of the second-round interviews. All fragments relevant to teachers’ actual changes were coded and put into the specified categories. In addition, to describe the difference between the intended and actual changes of teachers’ practice, the frequencies of the six categories from two transcripts were counted. With regards to the second research question, all the second-round interview transcripts were coded and analysed with the guidance of the general conceptual model on transfer of learning. Firstly, the fragments were coded into the following three domains of influencing factors: (1) Teacher characteristics; (2) Work placement; (3) School environment. Secondly, based on the constructs of the model on transfer of learning, the categories were extracted and generated within each domain. To ensure the reliability of the results, multi-round discussions were conducted by all the authors to adjust and adapt the categories. To further reveal how teachers perceive these categories, the categories were further specified in terms of either being facilitating or hindering ones based on the views of most participants.

4.Results 4.1The effect of work placement on vocational teachers’ school practice Three levels, including six categories of teachers’ changes in practice have been distinguished. 4.1.1School level Several participants reported that they made use of their learning experience with work placement to contribute to school development, such as developing the cooperation between enterprises and schools. 4.1.2Collegial level At the collegial level some participants reported they shared what they learned from work placement with their colleagues to improve collective teaching practice. 4.1.3Classroom practice Adapting teaching content. The participants indicated that they applied their newly acquired knowledge and skills within both their theoretical and practical teaching modules. Enriching teaching resources. It refers to teachers bringing plenty of new materials (such as cases, videos, pictures, manuals) received from work placement to their classroom practice. Providing career guidance. Vocational teachers talked about how they provided career information acquired from work placement to their students or offered some career advice for students based on their work placement experience. Organising competence-based activities. Vocational teachers organised activities to develop students’ career competence which were perceived as important during work placement, such as communication skills. 4.2The factors influencing the effect of work placement on teachers’ practice Thirteen influencing factors were generated and clustered into three domains: teacher characteristics, work placement, and school environment. 4.2.1Teacher characteristics High motivation to transfer, perceived utility, and perceived effect were reported as facilitating factors, while low transfer self-efficacy and amount of experience were seen as hindering factors by the participants. 4.2.2Work placement Clear learning goals were distinguished as a facilitating factor, while short duration of work placement and narrow content relevance were regarded as hindering factors. 4.2.3School environment We distinguished one facilitating factor (students’ high interests) and four hindering factors (teachers’ heavy workload, disruption of prescribed teaching pacing, students’ unreadiness, and insuffcient school support).

Andersson, P., & Köpsén, S. (2018). Maintaining Competence in the Initial Occupation: Activities among Vocational Teachers. Vocations and Learning, 11(2), 317-344. doi:10.1007/s12186-017-9192-9 Bakkenes, I., Vermunt, J. D., & Wubbels, T. (2010). Teacher learning in the context of educational innovation: Learning activities and learning outcomes of experienced teachers. Learning and Instruction, 20(6), 533-548. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.09.001 Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of Training: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065-1105. doi:10.1177/0149206309352880 Chaaban, Y. (2017). Examining changes in beliefs and practices: English language teachers' participation in the School-based Support Program. Professional Development in Education, 43(4), 592-611. doi:10.1080/19415257.2016.1233508 Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 947-967. doi:10.1016/s0742-051x(02)00053-7 De Rijdt, C., Stes, A., van Der Vleuten, C., & Dochy, F. (2013). Influencing variables and moderators of transfer of learning to the workplace within the area of staff development in higher education: Research review. Educational Research Review, 8(1), 48-74. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2012.05.007 Dymock, D., & Tyler, M. (2018). Towards a more systematic approach to continuing professional development in vocational education and training. Studies in Continuing Education, 40(2), 198-211. doi:10.1080/0158037X.2018.1449102 Guskey, T. R. (2002). Does it make a difference? Evaluating professional development. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 45. Hubers, M. D., Endedijk, M. D., & Van Veen, K. (2020). Effective characteristics of professional development programs for science and technology education. Professional Development in Education, 1-20. doi:10.1080/19415257.2020.1752289 Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. (2016). 职业学校教师企业实践规定 [The regulation for vocational teachers' practice in enterprises]. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A10/s7011/201605/t20160530_246885.html. Accessed 22 October 2020 Smith, C., & Gillespie, M. (2007). Research on professional development and teacher change: Implications for adult basic education. Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, 7(7), 205-244.