This study sought to identify factors that deterred employees of the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission from accessing the training and development fund for personal and professional development. The researcher used an instrument modeled on Darkenwald and Valentines (1985) Deterrents to Participation Scale (DPS-G) and incorporated the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale and Robitschek (1998) Personal Growth Initiative Scale to investigate employee perceptions of deterrents to participation. For purposes of this study, participation was defined as enrolment in a course, workshop, seminar or training program for which the employee had requested prior approval and reimbursement of expenses from their employer. <p>Principal components analysis identified the combined category and factor, workplace issues as having the greatest potential for decreasing deterrents to participation for Commission employees. Results indicated (1) the mean score on the item personal growth initiative was significantly lower for respondents with one year of post secondary education than for both respondents with two years and greater than four years of education after high school; (2) the mean score on the item personal growth initiative was significantly lower for respondents in the office and clerical occupational category than for all other Commission work groups. <p>Another significant factor was that thirty-two percent of Commission staffs were eligible to retire within five years. Sixty-six percent of staffs were between the ages of forty-six and sixty. Survey data revealed the mean score on the item lack of relevance was significantly lower for respondents with greater than ten years until retirement than for respondents with three to five years until retirement. This result was anticipated, as Martindale and Drake (1989) clearly indicated that the closer one was to retirement, the less relevant education for career became. Marginally significant difference in the mean score on the item lack of relevance between respondents with one to two years until retirement and those with three to five years revealed a contradicting hypothesis. Participation in education, training, and development was less relevant to persons with three to five years until retirement than for those expecting to retire in one to two years. Personal and family constraints also influenced employee participation in educational opportunities. <p>In order for the Commission to become a learning organization as indicated in the Draft Human Resource and Organizational Learning Strategy, 2003, innovative strategies are required to include all staffs in training and development. Thus, by identifying a framework of deterrents, the Commission could use this checklist as a tool in future planning and policy development efforts related to staff professional development. Participation by Commission employees in surveys related to this study has increased their awareness of opportunities to participate in personal and professional growth initiatives.

This study sought to identify factors that deterred employees of the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission from accessing the training and development fund for personal and professional development. The researcher used an instrument modeled on Darkenwald and Valentines (1985) Deterrents to Participation Scale (DPS-G) and incorporated the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale and Robitschek (1998) Personal Growth Initiative Scale to investigate employee perceptions of deterrents to participation. For purposes of this study, participation was defined as enrolment in a course, workshop, seminar or training program for which the employee had requested prior approval and reimbursement of expenses from their employer. <p>Principal components analysis identified the combined category and factor, workplace issues as having the greatest potential for decreasing deterrents to participation for Commission employees. Results indicated (1) the mean score on the item personal growth initiative was significantly lower for respondents with one year of post secondary education than for both respondents with two years and greater than four years of education after high school; (2) the mean score on the item personal growth initiative was significantly lower for respondents in the office and clerical occupational category than for all other Commission work groups. <p>Another significant factor was that thirty-two percent of Commission staffs were eligible to retire within five years. Sixty-six percent of staffs were between the ages of forty-six and sixty. Survey data revealed the mean score on the item lack of relevance was significantly lower for respondents with greater than ten years until retirement than for respondents with three to five years until retirement. This result was anticipated, as Martindale and Drake (1989) clearly indicated that the closer one was to retirement, the less relevant education for career became. Marginally significant difference in the mean score on the item lack of relevance between respondents with one to two years until retirement and those with three to five years revealed a contradicting hypothesis. Participation in education, training, and development was less relevant to persons with three to five years until retirement than for those expecting to retire in one to two years. Personal and family constraints also influenced employee participation in educational opportunities. <p>In order for the Commission to become a learning organization as indicated in the Draft Human Resource and Organizational Learning Strategy, 2003, innovative strategies are required to include all staffs in training and development. Thus, by identifying a framework of deterrents, the Commission could use this checklist as a tool in future planning and policy development efforts related to staff professional development. Participation by Commission employees in surveys related to this study has increased their awareness of opportunities to participate in personal and professional growth initiatives.

This study purports to explore how apprentices in microbiology, through interaction and multimodal activities, acquire the knowledge and skills that are necessary for doing scientific experiments. It aims to examine the ways novices learn to scrutinize and discuss the data under investigation, how experts communicate scientific knowledge about microbes to novices, and how experts and novices together create new scientific knowledge during the apprenticeship. Furthermore, this study aims at explaining the various ways narratives contribute to the socialization of the apprentice into the workplace and the scientific field, and how stories help retain knowledge, gained in one situation, to be used in other contexts and situations. To achieve this aim, I videotaped daily activities in a small microbiology lab, focusing on detailed observations of experts and novices as they engaged in teaching and learning. I was especially interested in what kinds of innovative symbolic communication resources would be invoked during such educational activities. In addition, I collected data pertaining to how the apprentice was socialized into this particular community of practice. I applied a ‘situated learning’ approach to the analysis of the instructional data, as well as discourse analytic and social semiotic methods of analyzing verbal and nonverbal, embodied interaction. I found that researchers, by using embodied and semiotic resources, created moments of shared participation between themselves and their scientific objects. Likewise I found that gestures shaped objects and concepts, and brought these into an intersubjective space where researchers, tools, instruments, and concepts interacted in a collaborative architecture. I named the specific literacy prevalent in scientific experimentation (reading and understanding graphs, diagrams, pictures, etc.) as ‘science literacy’, to distinguish it from the term ‘scientific literacy’, a general understanding of popularized scientific topics. Blurred boundaries were discovered between the living organisms and their semiotic representations whenever the expert and the novice referred to the living organisms in their discussions concerning graphs and diagrams. The researchers changed their terminology, depending on the bacteria changing from animate to inanimate status. Finally, I discovered the significance of contextual tellability in narratives functioning both as introduction to the workplace and as memory devices. / text

Apprenticeship is an old and venerable method of teaching skills and knowledge stretching back to antiquity. Most of the traditional aspects of this teaching and learning method, the practice of apprenticeship, takes place in the workplace where few educational researchers venture. In addition, because apprenticeship bridges issues related to education, training, labour market, social policy, and anthropology, research reports cover a broad spectrum but do not offer a synthetic view of apprenticeship. This research, focuses on a single trade, in a single company, in order to document the practice of formal apprenticeship. To set the stage, a preliminary classification of the disparate literature on apprenticeship as well as a brief history of apprenticeship in Canada and in British Columbia is offered. The registered cook apprenticeship in British Columbia studied shows that four major themes undergird the 'program': context, progression, knowledge, and vocational training. Context directly affects what can and is practiced on the job, hence affects the outcomes of the apprenticeship. In addition, it can be assumed that micro contextual differences play a role as important as macro contextual differences in apprenticeship. Progression represents the journey from neophyte to master and impacts apprenticeship as it charts one's career progression; a clear view of progression also seems to affect apprenticeship outcomes. Knowledge and vocational education seem to be linked and represent, for the apprentices and the masters, external yardsticks of achievement which are used to confirm stages of the journey. The research shows that present day apprenticeships have retained much of their rich tradition. Historical elements can be recognized in the models which summarize writings about apprenticeship presented in this paper. The models help contrast the practice with the intent of apprenticeship; and allow for the creation of a composite model which best fits fit a real-life case. Suggestions about the current practice of apprenticeship can be made from the models. But future research will have to further clarify some of the issues raised here, as well as chart a coherent course for the study of apprenticeship.

Thesis (B.Ec.(Hons.)) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. Economics, 1964.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1954. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [87]-91).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed June 8, 2007). PDF text: v, 138 p. ; 1.93 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3242157. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Apprenticeship is an old and venerable method of teaching skills and knowledge stretching back to antiquity. Most of the traditional aspects of this teaching and learning method, the practice of apprenticeship, takes place in the workplace where few educational researchers venture. In addition, because apprenticeship bridges issues related to education, training, labour market, social policy, and anthropology, research reports cover a broad spectrum but do not offer a synthetic view of apprenticeship. This research, focuses on a single trade, in a single company, in order to document the practice of formal apprenticeship. To set the stage, a preliminary classification of the disparate literature on apprenticeship as well as a brief history of apprenticeship in Canada and in British Columbia is offered. The registered cook apprenticeship in British Columbia studied shows that four major themes undergird the 'program': context, progression, knowledge, and vocational training. Context directly affects what can and is practiced on the job, hence affects the outcomes of the apprenticeship. In addition, it can be assumed that micro contextual differences play a role as important as macro contextual differences in apprenticeship. Progression represents the journey from neophyte to master and impacts apprenticeship as it charts one's career progression; a clear view of progression also seems to affect apprenticeship outcomes. Knowledge and vocational education seem to be linked and represent, for the apprentices and the masters, external yardsticks of achievement which are used to confirm stages of the journey. The research shows that present day apprenticeships have retained much of their rich tradition. Historical elements can be recognized in the models which summarize writings about apprenticeship presented in this paper. The models help contrast the practice with the intent of apprenticeship; and allow for the creation of a composite model which best fits fit a real-life case. Suggestions about the current practice of apprenticeship can be made from the models. But future research will have to further clarify some of the issues raised here, as well as chart a coherent course for the study of apprenticeship. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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