The study INDUCT aims at discovering and explaining the relationship between the quality of a country’s VET-system an employers’ recruitment and training practices. Furthermore, it seeks to enhance knowledge on three more questions and discussions: first, the question on forms of induction enterprises offer to new employees and their means of supporting their employees’ career development, second, on contexts of competence development, and third on the discussion around the benefits of work-based vocational education. (Cramer & Müller, 1994; Herget & Walden, 2002).

Looking at recent research on induction we observed that it tends to be limited in scope: often it is based on the analyses of induction processes in a selected enterprise (Drees, 2009; Rappe, 2006). A first international overview on research into induction processes has been published a little while ago (Zdravkovic, 2008). However, it mainly applies the perspective of organisational socialisation and does neither target the issue of professional knowledge and skills nor the match of qualifications, young labour market entrants and job requirements. With a special focus on VET, the BIBB already carried out a first research project concerning this subject in the late 1980’s on national level. It analyzed the learning and professional development in the first years of employment after completion of (initial) vocational education. It was found out that continuing learning and education after apprenticeship became increasingly important.

As an international comparative study in four countries (United Kingdom, Spain, Finland and Germany), different problems had to be tackled, particularly due to different meanings and understanding of concepts. One of such challenges was a variety of connotations of the concept of “intermediate level work”. As a feasibility study, one goal of our study was finding common criteria that can be applied across different countries and sectors. This contribution is based on results of the project “INDUCT, that we presented already last year at the ECER. Last year’s presentation gave a general overview on the project and some selected results, the aim of this year’s poster is to focus on methodological problems and considerations. Our poster will provide a methodological overview on our understanding  of “intermediate skilled work” and attampts to assess this in an employer survey. For this reason we “de-constructed” the concept intro three dimensions:

• Competence development
• Tasks and Work organisation
• Wages

A major intention behind this was to formulate items for the questionnaire that are free of “pedagogical jargon” and do not pre-suppose a joint understanding of the concept. Based on this dimensioning we have formulated items of which we hope that they provide valid indicators for “intermediate level work”.

Cramer, G., & Müller, K. (1994). Nutzen der betrieblichen Berufsausbildung. Köln: Deutscher Instituts-Verlag. Drees, B. J. (2009). Die Einarbeitung in die Praxis als Schlüsselelement eines Bildungssystems der Zukunft. Ein Konzept für die Weiterentwicklung von Traineeausbildung in innovativen Unternehmen. München: Hampp. Herget, H., & Walden, G. (2002). Nutzen der betrieblichen Ausbildung für Betriebe - erste Ergebnisse einer empirischen Erhebung. Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis(6), 32-37. Rappe, C. (2006). Die Einarbeitung neuer Mitarbeiter als pädagogischer Prozess. Aufgezeigt am Beispiel einer Firma der Kerntechnik. Zdravkovic, D. (2008). Gute Mitarbeiter durch gute Einarbeitung. Kritische Analyse des internationalen Forschungsstandes. Dresden: Techn. Univ., Fak. Wirtschaftswiss.