The IAL Research & Innovation Division aims to provide a strong knowledge base for the development of practice in CET. It seeks to ensure that the development of policy is informed by research and up-to-date knowledge of international and local best practices.
The division also enables research in Singapore by facilitating projects and building research capability amongst practitioners. It also serves as a conduit for funding and commissioning research in the CET sector. Through practitioner engagement and partnerships, it works to build a vibrant research culture.
Our three research centres, Centre for Work and Learning, Centre for Skills, Performance and Productivity and Centre for Innovation and Development, focus research efforts within specific areas of national interest.
Click here for the researchers supporting the Centre.
Centre for Work and Learning (CWL) is a research centre of IAL. CWL specialises in research on continuing education and training system design and practices. Our research employs a range of methodologies designed to deepen understanding in the challenges and opportunities for learning and development in and across different settings, particularly in relation to work and work environments.
It undertakes research that seeks to understand better the processes and practices of learning design, teaching, learning and assessment in and across different settings and the implications for practice and policy. The changing nature of work offers different kinds of opportunities for learning and development, thus our research includes the study of work and work environments and learning and development within these settings.
In brief, our research employs a range of methodologies designed to deepen understanding of the ways in which contexts enhance and limit learning and development opportunities. Our approach is to engage practitioners in the research process and thus develop a community of practitioner researchers.
The Centre is led by Dr Helen Bound, Principal Research Fellow & Head.
Centre for Skills, Performance and Productivity (CSPP) is a research centre of IAL. CSPP specialises in skills research in relation to workplace performance and productivity. The approach is interdisciplinary, employing both quantitative and qualitative research techniques.
It focuses on the impact of skills at work, and the implications of this for policy and practice in CET. In particular, research will be directed to examining the role of skills in enterprises and the relationships between skills and a wide range of desirable workplace outcomes. These outcomes include productivity, innovation, learning, skills retention and the use of qualifications.
Skills utilisation is an important element within this research cluster, as skills utilisation provides a crucial link between skills and many workplace performance outcomes. Another focus of research is to examine the impact of CET’s skills provision on the Singaporean workforce.
The Centre is led by Professor Johnny Sung, Centre Director.
Centre for Innovation and Development (CID) is a research centre of IAL. CID researches and experiments with designs and practices of continuing education and training to enable innovations through developing new or improving existing ones.
It advocates a new holistic approach to enhance the effectiveness of CET by strengthening the links between Skills, Productivity and Performance. It researches, experiments in and innovates CET design and delivery to enable a sector to adopt new training approaches or improve existing ones. On the education technology front, the centre undertakes experimentation and builds resources on blended learning and technology-based learning design to enable wider adoption in the CET community, as well as facilitate capability building of our CET practitioners.
The Centre is led by Jenny Chua, Deputy Director & Head.