Our Research

Here at IAL, our Research Division aims to provide a strong knowledge base for the development of practice in CET.

Our Research

As an institute that champions excellence in Continuing Education and Training, IAL undertakes research projects that examine the various aspects of adult learning and development. The data we gather and the results we analyse enable us to further the advancement of the CET sector in Singapore, and inform policy making and decisions.

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our research
Completed | 2011

Practitioner Research for Professional Learning in CET

Dr Helen Bound

The purpose of this research project is to identify the range of pedagogical beliefs of Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ trainers, trainers’ enactment of those beliefs and the ways in which context mediates these beliefs. In addition, through the process of engaging practitioners (trainers) in undertaking their own research, the project aims to explore how this process enables reflective practice, and to work towards developing possible models for professional learning involving practitioner research and reflective practice.

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our research
Completed | 2011

Singapore WSQ, Workplace Learning and Assessment

Dr Helen Bound, Magdalene Lin

This report confirms the understanding that WSQ training is predominantly classroom-based. More importantly, according to available statistics, the delivery of WSQ in 2009 was totally classroom-based. While our experience indicated that in 2010 there was workplace learning taking place, the extent of workplace learning is very limited. This is in sharp contrast to the delivery of competency-based training in a number of other countries. The preference for classroom delivery has resulted in limited examples of learning and assessment arrangements that take place in the workplace, and the use of different terminology (e.g. workplace learning and on-the-job training) to mean the same thing. The use of different terminology, while inevitable amongst lay people, can be a source of confusion and indicative of a need for a conceptual framework for those working within a particular system. The study was conducted in two stages, stage one examined the current delivery modes and ways in which workplace learning was valued; stage two consists of four semi-ethnographic case studies of workplace learning.

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our research
Completed | 2011

Skills Utilisation in Singapore

Prof Johnny Sung, Fiona Loke, Catherine Ramos, Michael Ng

The skills utilisation research examines how skills (and training) are making impact at the workplace through the knowledge of what skills are used and not used, and what priority of the different types of skills are utilised from the user’s perspective.

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