A Flexible Framework Integrating Digital and Social Competences in Vocational Education Across Diverse Contexts

Abstract

Competence frameworks have emerged to define the knowledge, skills and attitudes that contemporary educators mainly in general education environments should acquire. They have been less developed within VET which is now subject to fast evolving and complex activities as a result of rapid technological changes increasingly embedded in industrial and organisational demands of the working context. Many VET classrooms with dual or flexible contexts, with a range of diverse and vulnerable students, now requires teachers to be trained with new competences and cross-cutting skills. This paper presents the outcomes and data of the design and validation processes of a competence framework combining digital and social skills. It was piloted in 5 countries (UK, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Spain) to provide a flexible, scalable and needs-based competence framework for VET teachers working with vulnerable learners. After conducting a literature review and a needs assessment of VET teachers and learners, a flexible three-domain framework is presented, with pathways and training methods that accounts for the so-called poly-contextual skills that combine digital and social skills. The flexible framework and 26 competences were tested with 358 VET teachers using three evaluation tools (self-assessment survey, game-quizzes scores and programme satisfaction survey). Conclusions highlight the need to combine digital and social skills with flexible pathways to achieve them, due to the results evidenced higher changes in knowledge and application of domain B which includes digital and social skills for teaching, learning and how to empower learners.