The abstract concerns the results from a current project, “Creation and perception of meaningfulness in the transition from school-based training to workplace-based training” that is conducted within the Danish Centre for Knowledge about VET (CEVEU) Om Center for viden om erhvervsuddannelser - CEVEU in the period 2022-2024. In the project, we study students’, teachers’, and trainers’ perception of meaning related to the students’ transition from school-based education and training to the first period of workplace-based training in the Danish dual VET system. The focus is due to a significant part of the high dropout in Danish VET being located to the transition from school to work. (DEG, 2023; Aarkrog & Kamstrup, 2023).

The presentation of results from the project will focus on students’ perception of meaning and meaning making in the transition between school and workplace-based learning. Due to the high dropout rate connected to this transition it is interesting to explore what is meaningful to the student and what can cause the students to experience a lack of meaning in their vocational education at this point. The concept of meaning is highly inspired by self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci 2017, Ravn 2021). The project seeks to answer the following research questions: What do students perceive as meaningful in their education, both while they are in school and during workplace based training and what do students do to create meaningfulness, including meaningful connections, in the transition from school to workplace based training?

Using transition as a theoretical concept (inspired by Ågren 2023 and Holmegaard, Madsen & Ulriksen 2014), we analyze how students perceive meaning in the transition from school to workplace-based learning. Students' experiences of meaning in a current situation are influenced by the experiences they carry with them and their imaginaries of the future. In the transition from one place to another, students may see their experiences in a different light, or they may encounter something that affects their ideas about the future. In other words, experiences of meaning may change when students are in transition and move from one place to another or simply progress in their education. It is this movement that the concept of transitions captures in terms of highlighting when students' sense of meaning strengthens and weakens. Transition does not only occur from the day students leave school to the next day when they show up for training. The transition begins from the beginning of the school journey where notions of the workplace shape the student's experiences of meaning, and it continues in training, where students' experiences from school similarly influence their sense of meaning.

The results are based on case studies following four students from five VET programmes during the transition. The empirical data includes interviews with a group of students and interviews with their teacher(s) just before the students begin their first work-based training and interviews with the same students and their trainers sometime after the students have begun the work-based training. The purpose of interviewing the students before and after they have made the first physical transition to the workplace is to explore if their perception of meaning changes in this process. The interviews with students while they were still in their school period have been conducted as focus group interviews (Morgan 2010). In these interviews the students have been presented with several photos representing different aspects of their education and future vocation. The students have been asked to pick two photos each that showed what they perceived as meaningful aspects of their education. In the interviews the students have also been asked about their expectations of and ideas about their future training. The interviews with students at the workplace have been conducted as individual interviews since the students have been placed at different workplaces. Most of the interviews have taken place at the workplace involving the students showing the interviewer around at the workplace. During these interviews the students have been asked questions about what they perceive as meaningful in their training at the workplace and how their expectations and imaginations have been met. The interviews have been recorded, transcribed, and coded based on the theoretical framework i.e. Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) and inspired from previous research about the interrelation of school-based and workplace-based training (Aarkrog & Wahlgren 2022; Louw & Katznelson, 2019). As part of the analysis the data from interviews with students at schools and workplaces have been compared to explore how the transition affects the students’ perception of meaning.

The analysis of the results has yet to be completed so the following expected results. However, the analysis seems to show that the transition from school to first workplace based training is important to the students perception of meaning. The analysis will reveal what students identify as meaningful in their education when they are at school and during their training. One aspect of meaningfulness concerns the relation between theory and practice. Regarding this aspect, the students emphasize that what they learn in school should be applicable in practice. In interviews with students during training, most of them experience that they can indeed apply what they have learned. Learning in the training period appears to be meaningful when the trainers have patience with the students and introduce them to assignments slowly. Another aspect of meaningfulness concerns social relations. The students emphasize that social relationships at school are meaningful as part of the training as well as outside training. They expect or hope to establish similar social relationships with their colleagues during training. During the training, it seems that social relationships with colleagues continue to be perceived as meaningful, playing a crucial role in students' well-being during their training. Furthermore, the results include differences in the students’ ideas about the vocation and workplace-based training while at school compared to their actual experiences in the workplace-based training. The results are expected to show that the students while at school create various envisions of the daily life during the workplace-based training. They talk about different rumors they have heard about what it is like to be a student in their vocation or workplaces. Depending on the type of rumors they hear, these rumors will positively and negatively influence the students' transition into training.

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