Online vocational pedagogy during COVID-19: an analysis of video lectures by technical and vocational lecturers.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the types of knowledge and skills, as well as the pedagogical archetypes displayed by technical and vocational education and training lecturers. This study also investigates the potential impact of these pedagogical practices on the growth and development of expertise. Despite the critical role played by TVET institutions in equipping students with work-ready skills, many TVET lecturers remain inadequately qualified, which likely compromises the quality and effectiveness of their teaching methods (Rabaza, 2021). The shift to emergency remote teaching further challenged the lecturers’ abilities, demanding that they adapt their pedagogies to suit the “new model” of teaching. This qualitative case study was framed within the interpretivist paradigm and employed the Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2009) and Hugo & Louton’s (2020) conceptualisation of vocational pedagogy. Observation of the YouTube videos created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was used to collect data. The collected data was analysed deductively and inductively. This study aimed to explore how TVET lecturers employed different pedagogical strategies in online instructional videos and to examine the potential impact of these pedagogies on student learning. The study identified three archetypal vocational pedagogies used in TVET, through which students encounter distinct forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. The findings indicate that these archetypes have varying impacts on knowledge growth, with one particular archetype shown to progressively integrate different types and structures of knowledge, thereby enabling a shift from novice understanding to work-ready, proficient individuals. These insights offer a crucial framework for professional development initiatives aimed at enhancing the pedagogical effectiveness of TVET lecturers, ultimately improving the quality of teaching despite current qualification challenges.