"So, what do you do for a living?" - People identify themselves through their work. The decision in favour of a profession influences their entire life. Megatrends such as globalisation, internationalisation, migration and digitalisation are shaping the modern world of work and changing job profiles in the long term. How can good qualifications for professional activities be achieved under these circumstances? The research area of design-oriented VET research addresses this question on three levels: the individual, the organisational and the institutional level.
Individual& organisational skills development
The aforementioned megatrends pose socio-cultural, socio-technical and economic challenges for employees and employers. For example, companies are asking themselves the following questions: What skills do my employees need to keep pace with digitalisation? Or: How can I promote collaborative learning in a multicultural team? Employees, on the other hand, are confronted with questions of career guidance or personal development. The challenges posed by these issues can be addressed through vocational education and training. The research area is therefore dedicated to the didactic design of teaching and learning processes in different life contexts, learning with new media or the measurement and development of competences. The aim is to develop concrete recommendations for action and to consciously shape the transformation processes resulting from megatrends for organisations and individuals and to enable lifelong learning.
Institutional education management
Of course, responsibility for good vocational training and personnel development does not lie solely with companies and individuals. The federal and state governments must ask themselves how they want to make initial and continuing education and training fit for the future and how they can guarantee a high quality of teaching and learning in educational institutions. The key questions in this context are: How can regional educational processes be sponsored? How can we create equal opportunities for all? And what can curricula for sustainable education look like? The design and establishment of institutional foundations for vocational education and training as well as the introduction of education policy programmes and comparisons with global education systems are therefore another important component of design-oriented vocational education and training research. In recent years, Paderborn Vocational and Business Education has established itself as one of the leading national and international research institutions for questions relating to design-oriented VET research and plays a key role in the development of curricula, continuing education programmes and competence frameworks. The Centre for Vocational Education and Training (cevet), which has national and international research collaborations (Oxford, Cambridge, Tonji, Stanford), serves as an interdisciplinary centre of development. As part of a co-operation with the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BiBB), ministries and a large number of institutes and companies, the Paderborn location will become an even more central player in the research landscape for vocational education and training research in the future.
