Keywords

1 Introduction

Research shows that a career-oriented learning environment can enhance students’ development of career competencies and can foster students’ participation in practice-based learning and vocation-related activities (Kuijpers et al., 2011). Engaging students in an interactive classroom environment has regularly been discussed in various studies. For example, the online classroom environment of internet-based business courses influences students’ learning engagement in working with small groups and develo** discussion questions (Arbaugh, 2000). Meta-analyses on teaching effectiveness suggest that the effects of teaching on student learning are diverse and complex regarding the integrated components of learning in different contexts (Seidel & Shavelson, 2007). In the context of interactive classrooms, dialogic pedagogy as an approach increases learner engagement and classroom interactions, which enables teachers to value learners’ voices and promotes reflective learning (Lyle, 2008). Empirical studies and theoretical summaries on dialogic teaching and learning, dialogic interactions, and dialogic classroom have shown significant impacts on fostering students’ engagement in learning and teaching practice (Granger et al., 2012; Haneda, 2016; Lyle, 2008; Mercer & Littleton, 2007).

Other research suggests that effective teachers adapt their instructions in response to the features of classroom activities and students’ reflections on using open tasks (Parsons, 2012). Adaptive expertise described by (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007) emphasises on establishing effective classroom instruction connecting to students’ learning performance. Teacher participation in learning activities positively relates to the likelihood of effective teaching (de Vries et al., 2015). Therefore, teacher-led and student-led dialogic classroom interactions encourage students’ collaborative learning through adaptive dialogic instructions (Gillies, 2019; Kim & Wilkinson, 2019; Teo, 2016). By making vocational learning environments like workplaces, classroom-based activities emphasise flexible activity-based training platforms to facilitate students’ learning engagement (Zhao & Ko, 2020), vocational teachers encourage students to engage in work-based learning and assist the transfer of learning from the classroom to many other situations.

It is reasonable to suggest that the importance of understanding vocation-oriented classroom dialogues helps improve students’ learning and teaching practices concerning vocational teaching effectiveness. We apply two observational instruments developed for evaluating effective teaching behaviours and inspiring teaching in the vocation-oriented classroom. By selecting four videotaped lessons from different specialised subjects based on the mean scores of the percentile rank of sixty lessons’ distribution, in-depth classroom dialogic analysis was conducted to explore vocational students’ learning engagement and teachers’ dialogic adaptive instructions through Teacher-led-Student, Student-led-Teachers, Student-Student, and Student-Content interactions. Vocational classroom dialogues were used to analyse the characteristics of the learning engagement of classroom practice and teaching adaptations in the vocational learning environment.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Dialogic Interactions and Students’ Learning in Classroom Settings

Teachers’ and students’ dialogic interactions play a key role in engaging students with classroom dialogue to facilitate the exchange of ideas and opinions. Researchers have pointed out that dialogue makes students more active in sharing ideas and enables active participation in the process of dialogic interactions (Rojas-Drummond et al., 2013; Mercer & Littleton, 2007). However, systematic research by Howe and Abedin (2013) on classroom dialogue indicates that classroom dialogues are mainly teacher-student interactions around traditional information-response-feedback, and pedagogic teaching style is also the major factor in determining the student participation and dialogic patterns of group work activities. Other studies on different forms of dialogue such as student-teacher interactions emphasised students’ learning through lectures, textbooks, and classroom activities (Granger et al., 2012), and Gillies (2016, 2019) highlights the teacher’s role in dialogic teaching, which can be used to develop students’ learning proficiency. In scaffolding children’s learning and understanding processes, Rojas-Drummond et al. (2013) analysed the dialogic interactions among teachers and students for comprehending teaching and learning in classroom settings. The combined dialogic interactions have a significant effect on students’ learning outcomes in online and blended learning environments (Ekwunife-Orakwue & Teng, 2014). However, other studies suggest that it is a highly demanding task in enhancing student engagement through dialogic inquiries and teachers’ awareness of dialogic interactions in the classroom may not be commonly emphasised in the classroom discourse (Kumpulainen & Lipponen, 2010; Nystrand et al., 2003).

Others who have investigated the effect of dialogic interactions on students’ thinking and learning include collaborative learning through productive dialogues (Gillies, 2019; Vrikki et al., 2019a), dialogic engagement in small group reading comprehension (Maine & Hofmann, 2016), and dialogic classroom fostering students’ engagement in learning (Haneda, 2016). Evidence has emerged from these studies that guiding students to engage constructively with each others’ ideas contributes to a deeper understanding of disciplinary knowledge and helps students clarify their thinking with a small group and whole-class discussions. Studies by Haneda et al. (2017), Kim and Wilkinson (2019), Teo (2016), and Rojas-Drummond et al. (2013) highlight the importance of the teacher’s role in structuring students’ interactions with each other around tasks. According to Alexander’s (2017) five principles of classroom dialogue, the characteristics of dialogic interactions and teaching should be: (1) collective – with teachers and students in tasks as a group or a class; (2) reciprocal – with shared ideas and viewpoints between teachers and students; (3) supportive – students encouraging and hel** each other to reach common understandings; (4) cumulative – facilitating students in building on their own ideas and extending them into further understanding and enquiry; (5) purposeful – the teacher’s plan is directed towards particular learning goals (p. 28). Therefore, in promoting student engagement and academic dialogue, Gillies (2019) suggests the importance of structuring collaborative learning where students are taught how to advance an argument during group discussion and provide justifications to support their ideas and stance.

2.2 Dialogic Teaching and Adaptive Instructions

In connection with classroom dialogue, dialogic teaching as a pedagogical approach focuses on various pedagogies that foster classroom talk in a specific discourse practice (Kim & Wilkinson, 2019). Alexander’s (2004, 2017) concept of dialogic teaching requires teachers to organise teacher- or student-led small groups and engage students in teacher- or student-directed discussions. The dialogic interaction in coaching sessions helps teachers understand pedagogical approaches in the strategic use of classroom dialogue to teaching and learning (Haneda et al., 2017). Lyle (2008) addresses the dialogic practice relating to the quality of classroom interaction and the engagement of students’ learning, which draws attention to the features of dialogic teaching and learning in small collaborative groups. In considering dialogic engagement in classroom settings, problems and difficulties are also pointed out in implementing dialogic teaching in the higher-level interactions involving constructive meaning-making and reasoning (Lyle, 2008; Maine & Hofmann, 2016). Hardman (2016) emphasises the high quality of classroom talk between teacher-led and student-led interactions in empowering students to obtain transferable skills and stimulating learning experiences. A dialogic teaching intervention plays a central role in small-group dialogues and discussions (Hardman, 2019; Vrikki et al., 2019a), which suggests that the implementation of a dialogic pedagogy in teaching and learning serves to improve students’ participation, engagement and learning.

Adaptive instruction or individualised instruction is similar to orchestration (Dillenbourg, 1999; Dillenbourg, 2013; Dillenbourg & Tchounikine, 2007) that the teacher monitors the real classroom situation and decides what kinds of adaptations are necessary for students and then performs the individualised adaptions to the classroom. Dillenbourg (2013) refers to “orchestration” as a metaphor to indicate how the teacher acts as a conductor to demonstrate “how a teacher manages, in real-time, multi-layered activities in a multi-constraints context” (p. 485). An adaptation model proposed by Deed et al. (2019) suggests that the adaptive process in a flexible learning environment is complex and non-linear, which illustrates that teachers engage with the idea of space as an influence on teaching practice, and consider the relationship between teaching and learning space, and integrate the interplay between teaching and learning space. This is consistent with the view that flexible physical space enables greater collaboration in the teaching and learning processes and impacts the interplay between student activities and classroom engagement (Dane, 2016). Although teacher adaptation may include changes in teachers’ practical knowledge and its interaction with situated experience and affordances of flexible learning environments for teachers to influence student engagement, our focus is mainly on vocational teachers’ practices in terms of adaptive transactions between teacher and context, instructions and students with learning materials within classroom dialogues.

2.3 Varied Teaching Effectiveness and Vocation-Oriented Learning Environments

Teaching effectiveness can be diverse in light of the variety of teaching approaches applied in the different contexts of teaching and learning (Seidel & Shavelson, 2007). We define vocational teaching effectiveness as a set of classroom dialogues concerning the dialogic interactions involved in vocation-oriented teaching, students’ collaborative learning, and adaptive instructions on classroom training activities. The classroom learning environment includes not only the physical space for learning but also the intangible classroom climate, which strongly influences students’ learning outcomes and competence development (Fraser, 2001). Alfassi (2004) finds that the learner-centered environment promotes higher scores in academic achievement and relatively higher motivation for learning. Vocation-oriented learning environments emphasise on students’ learning process, which allows vocational students to reflect on their learning, showcase their vocational skills, and collaborate with peers (Valtonen et al., 2012). In relating to students’ collaborative learning, vocational dialogues focusing on career guidance methods play an important role in the relationship between vocational learning environment and students’ career competencies, which aims to foster students’ career learning in some aspects of the learning environment (Kuijpers et al., 2011).

On the other hand, flexibility in the vocational learning environment has been given emphasis with its flexible classroom settings such as activity-based training platforms, computer-supported workshops, and simulated software for practical training (Zhao & Ko, 2020). A flexible vocational learning environment facilitates students’ engagement in the process of training as Dillenbourg (2013) suggests that teachers have the freedom to adjust class activities in order to adapt to students’ learning needs. Therefore, the interaction of the collaborative learning activity within its relevant environmental context provides a lens for analyzing learning processes in the changing learning environments that students are engaged in within vocational classrooms. As stated by Kuijpers et al. (2011), a flexible vocational learning environment fosters the development of students’ career competencies, while students’ vocational skills are developed in their personalized learning environment through collaborating with other students (Valtonen et al., 2012).

3 Method

3.1 Context and Participants

Twenty vocational teacher participants in four different subject areas (mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, international trade on e-commerce, and business English) were selected at two higher vocational colleges in Guangdong province, south China. These vocation-oriented subjects are closely related to local enterprises such as foreign trade companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, higher vocational colleges in Guangdong province joined the scheme of industry-university collaboration to promote application-oriented teaching and students’ vocational learning (Liu, 2016). Within the context of the demands of practice-oriented teaching and learning, the vocational learning environment includes flexible spaces for students’ learning, adaptive instructions, and interactive classroom learning, which encourages learner engagement in the subject teaching. Each teacher participant has at least three years teaching experience. All teachers were observed three times during one teaching semester, and each observed class had around 25 to 30 students in one classroom. Therefore, 60 class observations (based on participants’ agreement) were conducted using the International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) instrument (Van de Grift, 2007, 2014) and the Comparative Analysis of Effective Teaching and Inspiring Teaching (CETIT) instrument (Ko et al., 2019).

3.2 ICALT and CETIT Instruments

Videotaped lesson observation was used to analyse students’ interactive learning, teacher-student classroom interaction, and adaptive instructions in vocational learning environments that were embedded in the vocational pedagogy. The ICALT observation instrument has been applied to improving effective teaching behaviours and measuring teaching effectiveness and students’ academic engagement in the Netherlands (Maulana & Helms-Lorenz, 2016; Maulana et al., 2017). The ICALT instrument was deemed appropriate to assess students’ engagement and adaptive instructions within the vocational learning environment as it consists of six observable domains from the teacher’s perspective: a safe and stimulating learning environment, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, activating teaching, the adaptation to students’ learning needs, teaching learning strategies, and learner engagement from the student’s perspective. Each domain comprises several indicators, and each indicator contains a number of items. For instance, the indicator of presenting and explaining the subject materials in the domain of clear and structured instructions includes items such as activating the prior knowledge of learners, giving staged instructions, posing questions which learners can understand, and summarising the subject material from time to time. Each item was rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = mostly weak; 2 = more often weak than strong; 3 = more often strong than weak; 4 = mostly strong).

The CETIT observational instrument has similar features in terms of the domain of teaching behaviours when compared to the ICALT. The CETIT instrument covers 68 items in five aspects of inspiring teaching and employs a 5-point Likert scale in rating each item (1 = mostly weak; 2 = more often weak than strong; 3 = not observed (neutral); 4 = more often strong than weak; 5 = mostly strong). The CETIT observation instrument includes the features of teaching domains such as flexibility, collaboration, and innovative teaching that are more appropriate for vocational classrooms. For example, there are five items under the theme of classroom collaboration such as encouraging students to work together, giving students tasks to work in groups, students sharing their work in a task, making clear how students can help each other, and asking students to do demonstrations together.

3.3 Data Analysis

Two observation instruments (ICALT & CETIT) were employed to evaluate the quality of the lessons in terms of six aspects of effective teaching and five aspects of inspiring teaching, assuming these aspects occur independently. The mean scores of the two instruments were employed to rank the percentiles of the sixty lessons. Figure 9.1 summarizes the distribution of lessons’ percentile rank based on their mean scores on each instrument, which were marked in red. The percentile rank shows four contrastive cases: highly effective and highly inspiring, moderately effective and highly inspiring, moderately inspiring and highly ineffective, and highly ineffective and very uninspiring based on the mean scores of the distribution of lessons in Fig. 9.1. Four outlier lessons were selected to conduct an in-depth qualitative dialogue analysis (Hennessy et al., 2016; Hennessy et al., 2020; Vrikki et al., 2019b) to explore the teacher-student interactions in terms of the teaching effectiveness and the students’ learning engagement.

Fig. 9.1
A scatter plot compares the ranking of I C A L T mean versus the ranking of C E T I T mean. A uniform and consistent linear graph heading upwards is plotted. The density of dots ranges from 0 to 1.

The scatter plot of percentile rank of CETIT and ICALT mean scores

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A coding scheme for educational dialogue analysis (SEDA) developed by (Hennessy et al., 2016; Hennessy et al., 2020) consists of three hierarchical levels of analysis in a dialogic teaching and learning environment: communicative situations (CS) at a macro level, communicative events (CE) at a meso-level, and communicative acts (CA) at a micro-level. The SEDA coding scheme was used to analyse both the teacher’s and the students’ dynamic interactional process throughout a lesson according to these analytic procedures. Some studies have argued for the inclusion of various dialogue interactions that influence students’ learning such as transactional distance dialogic interactions (Ekwunife-Orakwue & Teng, 2014), children’s thinking and learning through dialogic approaches (Gillies, 2016, 2019; Maine & Hofmann, 2016; Rojas-Drummond et al., 2013), and students’ linguistic development through dialogic teaching ( Haneda, 2016; Haneda et al., 2017). In this study, we emphasised different forms of dialogic interactions in analysing four vocation-oriented lessons and the forms of dialogue are presented as follows:

  • Teacher-Led-Student (TLS) interaction: dialogues between students and teachers – teacher-guided activities aiming towards increasing students’ understanding.

  • Student-Led-Teacher (SLT) interaction: dialogues between students and teachers – the teacher as a facilitator, student-led activities aiming towards increasing students’ understanding.

  • Student-Student (SS) interaction: dialogues between students in group activities aiming towards increasing students’ learning engagement.

  • Student-Content (SC) interaction: dialogues between students and course contents, that is, students’ interaction with the technology or other materials used in the course or students’ access to training platforms.

Four characteristic areas of vocation-oriented teaching and learning were summarised from the dimensions of the ICALT and CETIT instruments (structured and purposeful instructions, flexible and activating teaching, collaborative learning, and adaptive instructions) in relating to vocational students’ learning engagement. In order to understand the selected dimensions of vocational teaching and learning and the general dynamics of the selected lesson(s), the CS was further segmented into a series of CE, i.e., each CS was segmented into different keyword descriptions as shown in Table 9.1.

Table 9.1 The related dimensions of ICALT and CETIT for dialogic analysis
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Analysis of classroom dialogic interactions is an essential step in identifying a certain CE. CA, as a series of observable teacher-student and students’ dialogic interactions were analysed using the coding scheme to code CA. In-depth analyses of videotaped lesson transcripts were carried out to describe vocational CS, CE, and CA under the forms of interactive dialogues (TLS, SLT, SS, SC). Table 9.2 below shows a three-minute excerpt from a mechanical engineering lesson analysis which highlights the collaborative learning activities in the vocation-oriented training class.

Table 9.2 Excerpt from a three-minute dialogic analysis on automobile engineering about adding refrigerant
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4 Findings and Discussion

Dialogic teaching analysis of four videotaped lessons suggests that vocational teachers used informal and formal approaches to engage students in different aspects of classroom practice, such as small group teaching of vocational skills, vocation-oriented activities that connected to real-life situations, and students’ collaborative learning on improving career competencies. The four lesson cases represent four different vocational majors that characterise students’ collaborative learning and teachers’ individualised or adaptive instructions. In practice, although the two selected lessons (from the subject area of international trade on e-commerce and electronic engineering respectively) show moderately inspiring and highly ineffective characteristics, and highly ineffective and very uninspiring characteristics based on the mean score distribution of the ICALT and CETIT instruments, there appears to be slight difference between the vocational lessons indicated regarding the collaborative learning and the vocation-oriented teaching and learning processes through dialogic analysis of vocational classroom interactions.

4.1 Dialogic Teaching with Enhanced Learning Engagement

Vocational students’ engagement with purposeful instructions in small-group collaborative learning improved vocation-oriented teaching effectiveness through teacher-led classroom conversations and discussions. The automobile engineering lesson was set up 4 to 8 students in a group to operate the machine and the e-commerce lesson was formed of students supplied with installed e-commerce software for online interactive training. The extract detailing the teacher guided students working together to practice how to add refrigerant for automobile air conditioning shown in Table 9.2 suggests that the teacher-led classroom interactions emphasised clear and structured instructions in using materials relating to the course content in order to stimulate student-students learning engagement. The classes were featured as small group teaching and they were also designed as group teaching so that two teachers were guiding two groups of students and the other two groups were writing training reports or having their own practice within a group. The findings are informed by reviews of relevant literature (Gillies, 2019; Howe & Abedin, 2013; Lyle, 2008; Maine & Hofmann, 2016; Vrikki et al., 2019b) that dialogic small-group collaborative learning encourages students’ involvement in vocational learning activities. Vocational students’ collaborative learning in small groups promotes a stimulating learning environment that helps students improve problem-solving skills (Hoek & Seegers, 2005). Meanwhile, Słowikowski et al. (2018) highlight that collaborative learning in online situations enhances students’ vocational skills connecting with mechatronics education.

4.2 Adaptive Instructions on Vocation-Oriented Learning Activities

The pre-defined activities in the automobile engineering lesson allowed the teacher to adapt students’ learning behaviors. For example, students who were falling behind in the pre-designed training activities were guided by using the other training machines. Moreover, in completing their class training activities, the teacher also used additional aids such as the flow chart board of operational procedures and a teaching assistant supporting them to handle the machines while the other grouped students were completing their after-training report assignments. According to Dillenbourg (2013), extrinsic activities are the main learning scenarios in classroom life and the core activities designed as adaptive with individualized instructions adapt the activities to students’ learning. Based on the findings, adaptive vocational teaching featured individualized, structured, and purposeful instructions to adjust students’ vocation-oriented learning activities. The adaptive instructions in this Chinese vocational learning environment meant that teachers could arrange task-based learning activities according to different subject requirements such as technological e-commerce platforms or training machines for engineering students. This suggests that differentiated instructions in vocation-oriented classrooms are directed towards engaging students’ learning in various subject-based activities.

Although some studies have identified that differentiation in adjusting to learner differences is one of the more complex skills among teaching behaviours and student teachers and even experienced teachers spend a long time in develo** this skill (Maulana & Helms-Lorenz, 2016; Van de Grift et al., 2014), other research finds that students’ engagement in diversified vocational learning environments allows teachers to focus more on adapting to students’ practical learning and vocational training (Zhao & Ko, 2020). On the practical level, however, adapting activities in the vocational classroom requires that teachers change the level of difficulty, such as adding or skip** some exercises whenever it is needed (Dillenbourg, 2013; Parsons, 2012). Therefore, adaptive instructions in the vocation-oriented training classroom attempt to integrate into learning environments while adjusting to both individualized and group learning activities. These findings are consistent with the view that a flexible classroom setting in the vocational learning environment promotes a stimulating learning climate and allows teachers to adjust pre-designed class activities in order to suit students’ learning requirements (Dillenbourg, 2013; Dillenbourg & Tchounikine, 2007). This illustrated the flexibility of adaptive instructions within specialised vocational classroom activities and the focus on individual students’ learning and instructions.

4.3 Built-in Flexible Teaching with Enhanced Practical Understandings

Flexibility was built into the vocational teaching arrangement in terms of the possibility of change while preparing class activities and the possibility of adjusting the teaching pace for some students to catch up with the average students. For example, the teacher guided students to work on the computer platforms themselves and walked around to help students in need and then gave them individual instructions in the e-commerce training class. It was evident that the flexible vocational learning environment allows teachers to modify interactive classroom activities (Dillenbourg, 1999, 2013) and collaborative lesson planning and teaching were characterized by the flexible nature of the learning environment and teaching and learning within open-plan settings (Deed et al., 2019). Furthermore, students in the electronic engineering class were flexibly arranged to perform classroom activities in order to promote interactions between students in completing their training projects. As is stated by Kuijpers et al. (2011) the flexible vocational learning environment fosters the development of students’ career competencies, while students’ vocational skills are emphasized in their personalized learning environment through collaborating with other students (Valtonen et al., 2012). The findings also supported the view that the development of practical learning achievement within individualized or fluid grou**s was enhanced in the flexible learning environment (Deed et al., 2019).

5 Conclusion and Implications

This study illustrates students’ learning engagement and teachers’ adaptive instructions in a flexible vocational learning environment and group-based collaborative learning environments that support differentiated teaching practice and multiple class grou**s of vocation-oriented activities. Furthermore, the study also reveals that flexibility in teaching stimulates vocational students’ involvement in learning and promotes interactions between students’ learning activities. In addition, the findings suggest that adaptations in vocational instructions may change based on students’ engagement with learning activities as well as the flexibility of teaching scenarios. This supports previous research which demonstrates how teachers adapt their teaching practice to rely on the possibilities inherent in the flexible classroom environment and in their vocational instructions to engage their students and how this is more likely within specialized subjects (Deed et al., 2019; Dillenbourg et al., 2002; Dillenbourg, 2013; Zhao & Ko, 2020).

Although the research may be limited by the number of lessons analysed, the findings offer an in-depth understanding of vocational students’ engagement in the collaborative learning environment and the flexibility provided by adaptations including structured and purposeful instructions in the vocation-oriented classroom. The study emphasises vocational students’ learning patterns and teaching adaptations in the specific context of Chinese higher vocational education, which suggests that vocational students’ learning engagement and occupational competence development may be influenced by the collaborative learning environment and group-based adaptive instructions. Furthermore, the study contributes to the development of vocational learning theory and practice by enhancing our knowledge of student learning patterns, teaching practice, and the respective learning environments in the vocational education context. It also informs practitioners of the importance of vocational learning competence embedded in the delivery of vocational education curricula. Finally, vocation-oriented instructions involve teachers’ workplace experiences while guiding students’ training activities, which implies that vocational teachers’ workplace learning experience may help improve collaborative learning activities and adaptive skill-based instructions in vocational classrooms.