What personal histories of workplace learning reveal about assessment practices in vocational education and training.
Date
2012-02-13
Authors
Mnisi, Nondumiso Innocentia
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Abstract
This research report is concerned with the acquiring and assessment of tacit knowledge in the
workplace, that is, craft or vocational knowledge. It is part of a broader research initiative on
the part of SAQA, which is aimed at informing the NQF and how it should represent the
outcomes of vocational education and training. This broad project is based on ethnographies
of a number of workplaces — this one was carried out in a furniture factories. It focuses on
data drawn from the personal histories of ten workers, who are at various points on the
mourned form novice to expert furniture maker. The personal histories approach, which relies
on in-depth interviews, adds a component to the full ethnography of this workplace, which is
ongoing. The study proposes certain stages in the pathway from being a novice to becoming
an expert, which are encountering, experiencing, mediation, internalization and consolidation
of the knowledge of a craft trade. The data from each interview reveals that when workers
participate in a craft, they perform minor activities such as observation, imitating,
collaboration and helping with cutting. Through these practice and daily experiences, which
mostly involves trials and errors they learn and rectify their mistakes using guidance and
instruction that they receive from the master craft person as well as their skilled peers. In this
way their learning shifts from merely being an observer to becoming an expert as they
develop and become more skilled. More skills enabled them to make judgements or to assess
their own work and the work of others