Vocational Education and Training Research

The term vocational education and training (VET) research covers research works that deal with vocational learning, VET institutions and systems, vocatio­nal and labour market development, the learning-conducive design of work pro­cesses, and skills development. The disciplines that contribute to VET research include, in particular:

• educational sciences/vocational and business education
• business administration
• economics of education
• psychology/occupational psychology
• sociology/occupational sociology

Scholarly works in VET research are therefore characterised by multi-disciplinarity.

Articles in scholarly journals are the most frequent form of publication in VET research. Journal articles account for over half of the works indexed in the VET Repository, a disciplinary repository for VET research operated by the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB; Linten & Woll, 2019). However, the share of monographs has increased in recent years. This is probably due to the open access publishing strategy. The number of mono­graphs that are freely available in full-text form on the Internet has increased strongly, while printed books, the classical form of publication, are experiencing a gradual decline (Linten & Woll, 2019). Overall, a trend towards open access is discernible in the field of VET research. Traditional journals are increasingly being replaced by purely open access journals, such as Berufs- und Wirtschafts­pädagogik – online (bwp@) and Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung. This is especially true of traditional journals that do not provide green open access to their issues after an embargo period. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the journals market in the field of VET research is still dominated by print journals (Linten et al., 2019). 

The German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) is dealing with the topic of open access within the framework of the research pro­ject Open Access in Vocational Education and Training Research in Germany (OABBF). The project is investigating inter alia the factors that play a role in the acceptance, dissemination, and use of open access by authors in VET research.

As of March 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 166 titles under the keyword vocational training. Under the same keyword, OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) listed 7,479 titles.

As of March 2024, the Literature Search at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) made 4,841 books available as full texts​​​​​​​. The number of monographs that are freely available online as full texts has increased strongly in recent years.