Public research: selected publications

More publications available through ResearchGate.

Apprenticeship learning and assessment

  • Background to the Emergence of Skill Standards

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    How standards based assessment works. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • An Overview of the System for Qualifications Development and Implementation

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    How the system works, and the role of each part. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • A Guide to Developing Skill Standards-based Qualifications

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    Qualifications development: concepts and practical guidance. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • A Guide to Programme Development with Skill Standards

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    Developing and delivering learning programmes: concepts and practical guidance. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • A Guide to Assessment Approaches and Moderation for Consistency

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    A guide to assessing and moderating for consistency. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • The Role of Industry Stakeholders in Skill Standards-based Qualifications Development

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    Industry stakeholders - the 'how' and 'why' of engagement and advisory work. One of the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • The Good Practice Toolkit for Qualifications Development: How to Use the Guides

    Karen Vaughan and Andrew Kear
    How to use the guides in the Good Practice Toolkit.

  • Knowing Practice: Vocational Thresholds for Carpenters, GPs and Engineering Technicians

    Karen Vaughan, Linda Bonne & Jan Eyre
    What kinds of experiences propel learners across a 'vocational threshold' to new levels of capability?

  • Mate, You Should Know This! Re-negotiating Practice After a Critical Incident in Assessment

    Karen Vaughan, Andrew Kear & Heath MacKenzie
    A perfect storm for a training advisor’s site visit leads to changes in a community of practice.

  • The Role of Apprenticeship in the Cultivation of Soft Skills and Dispositions

    Karen Vaughan
    Apprenticeship is uniquely positioned to foster soft skills and give employers a valuable education role.

  • A Transformational System for On-Job Assessment in the Building and Construction Industries

    Karen Vaughan, Ben Gardiner & Jan Eyre
    A system that ensures assessors and trainers can focus on what really matters in apprentices' learning.

  • Taking Charge of Your Apprenticeship

    Andrew Kear, Karen Vaughan & Ben Gardiner
    A team approach to apprenticeship, with apprentice, trainer, assessor and moderator.

  • A Guide to Good Practice in ITO Systems to Assess On-Job Learning

    Karen Vaughan & Marie Cameron
    Four principles and examples for designing a system that aligns what to learn with how to assess it on-the-job. 

  • How Learning Happens at Work

    Karen Vaughan, Paul O'Neil & Marie Cameron
    A framework mapping the right conditions, strategies and activities for workplace-based learning.

  • Training for a Reflective Workforce: Transfer of Learning for Support Worker Apprentices

    Karen Vaughan and Jo McDonald
    A study of how apprentices can transfer learning - apply what they learn to more complex situations.

Youth pathways and career education

  • Engineering e2e (Education to Employment)

    Karen Vaughan
    How systems across economy, workforce development and career education could be integrated to develop engineers.

  • Subject Choice for the Future of Work

    Rose Hipkins & Karen Vaughan
    How do schools provide the right options, and how do students choose subjects, for the future of work?

  • Learning to Fly: Career Management Competencies

    Karen Vaughan & Lorraine Spiller
    Career management competencies have the potential to transform school career education.

  • Career Education Networks and Communities of Practice

    Karen Vaughan & Paul O'Neil
    School careers advisors need different relationships, information channels and skills.

  • Pathways, Labour Market Experiences and Learning at Work: Beyond the Age of 26

    Cathy Wylie & Karen Vaughan
    The Competent Learners study followed a cohort of young New Zealanders from early childhood, through school and into adulthood    . 

  • Young People Producing Careers and Identities

    Karen Vaughan, Josie Roberts & Ben Gardiner
    Follows 120 young people over a 5-year period since leaving school, analysing the four main ways they made sense of their pathways. 

  • The Pathways Framework meets Consumer Culture: Young People, Careers, and Commitment

    Karen Vaughan
    We need a more complex understanding of the imperatives young people face in a tertiary education system that intensifies particular kinds of choices.

Alternative education

  • Daring to be Different: The Rise and Fall of Auckland Metropolitan College

    Karen Vaughan
    'Metro', the only state-funded alternative high school in New Zealand, was closed after eight critical ERO reports, sparking questions about its role and schooling today.

  • Beyond the Age of Aquarius

    Karen Vaughan
    This book discusses alternative schools and initiatives from the 1960s, 1970s, and contemporary times, and how they have been reinvented as individual pathways.

  • Total Eclipse of the Heart: Doing Ethnographic Research

    Karen Vaughan
    This academic methodology paper explores disturbing aspects of research on the only state-funded alternative secondary school in New Zealand.

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