Lära för framtiden: Transfer i teknisk yrkesutbildning

This thesis concerns transfer in relation to teaching and learning with technical content and technical vocational education. Transfer of learning is fundamental, since no one can predict the future, and education cannot possibly cover all content that pupils will need in the future. What you learn in different contexts needs to be useful in new unknown contexts, where technology may have developed or the problems to solve might be different. The aim of this thesis is to study experiences of transfer in order to deepen the understanding of transfer and factors for transfer. A further aim is to contribute with knowledge about how theory and practice are handled and experienced in relation to learning with technical content and to learning in different arenas. The theoretical framework is the phenomenology of the life-word and the lived and experienced world is put in focus. Therefore, pupils, teachers and supervisors in technical vocational education in Swedish upper secondary school have been interviewed about their experiences of teaching and learning, and their narratives have been analysed. One of the studies in the thesis also concerns how theoretical and practical tasks are handled and experienced in technology education in Swedish compulsory school. The results show that different experiences from different learning arenas are important for the students’ learning during the education, but also that the teachers and the supervisors have an important role in connecting those experiences and creating possibilities for students to reflect on the experiences. According to the results in this thesis, teacher education could emphasise 1) the importance of helping students reflect upon and make connections between experiences made in different arenas and 2) the importance of interweaving theory and practice in education. Learning can thereby go beyond the learning situation and also be useful in future unknown situations, with new technical developments.