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Student and teacher perceptions of the differences between "academic" and "vocational" post-16 media courses

  • Steve Connolly
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Much debate about the relative merit of academic and vocational media courses in the UK is framed by a wider national and international discussion about the status of vocational education more generally. This paper reports the initial findings of a small scale study (set against larger, publicly available data on vocational education) which seeks to examine teacher and student perceptions of the key differences in academic and vocational media courses in the UK - both of which involve elements of production work as well as critical and theoretical perspectives - through a series of interviews with teachers and students, as well as scrutiny of the work they produce. The study hopes to shed some light on the skills, knowledge and criticality required by students on both types of course, as well as beginning to address some of the polarisation that takes place in discourses around academic and vocational education. Rather than suggesting that the choice for students in media education is one of "either vocational or academic", this paper will explore the idea that these two concepts are simply lenses through which students and teachers view very similar kinds of learning.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 5-17

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Media Practice and Education (Volume 21, Issue 1)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 10/06/2019
  • Published - 18/06/2019

Publication status

Published - 18/06/2019

ISSN

2574-1136

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/623236
  • Scopus: 85101760222

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