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Effects of Perceived In-Company Trainers’ Ethos on Apprentices’ Vocational and Organizational Identification: an Empirical Study with Cook and Automotive Apprentices

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the pedagogical ethos of vocational in-company trainers as perceived by apprentices and the apprentices’ identification with their vocation and their company from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. It is argued that the trainers’ pedagogical ethos is a relational construct that can be characterized by caring behavior, fairness, and the presupposition that the apprentices are capable of dealing with their assignments in a successful way. In order to investigate the importance of this specific kind of ethos in the Swiss context on an empirical basis, a cross-sectional study with 233 cook apprentices and 302 automotive apprentices was conducted. The analyses showed that the trainers’ pedagogical ethos as perceived by the apprentices significantly predicted the apprentices’ vocational and organizational identification. As regards occupation-specific differences in the effects of perceived ethos on identification, the analysis yielded no statistically significant results. Cook apprentices on average tended to feel less fairly treated by their trainers but to experience more trust in their ability than automotive apprentices, however. Moreover, their average ratings of vocational and organizational identification tended to be lower than to the ratings of automotive apprentices. The final section of the paper discusses these results with regard to identity formation processes and to their practical and moral implications.

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Notes

  1. The industry-specific courses were introduced to the system of vocational education in 1978 as a reaction to technical changes (Wettstein and Gonon 2009). They are aimed at a systematical development of specific professional skills whose acquisition takes more time than training companies can afford or which relate to tasks that are important to understand but do not occur in the work that the apprentices actually do (Forster-Heinzer 2015). For instance, to understand how an engine works, it is important to disassemble and reassemble it. Nowadays, however, motors are usually completely replaced and not repaired anymore (ibid).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers for their critical but very valuable comments.

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  1. Institute of Education, University of Zurich, Freiestrasse 36, 8032, Zürich, CH, Switzerland

    Sarah Forster-Heinzer

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Forster-Heinzer, S. Effects of Perceived In-Company Trainers’ Ethos on Apprentices’ Vocational and Organizational Identification: an Empirical Study with Cook and Automotive Apprentices. Vocations and Learning 13, 71–90 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-019-09230-3

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