Literacy practices in the workplace : education development officers in vocational education and training

Abstract

Reading and writing are two key skills for success in a highly text-mediated workplace. Despite being commonly recognised as basic and transferrable skills acquired in years of schooling, they should more rightfully be seen as social practices and thus as socially sensitive. The present study explored literacy practices in a highly text-mediated workplace for education development officers in vocational education and training. A multi-case study approach with an auto-ethnographic element was used to provide insight into how they engaged in literacy practices, including genre development, and how they provided narrative support. The findings have implications for workplace learning as an integral part of the professional development of education development officers, building competence and expertise in the field. The study was framed under the aegis of New Literacy Studies (NLS), which sees literacy as a social practice instead of a set of decontextualised skills. In alignment with the social practice view of literacy, Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) was also adopted to help understand aspects of situational contexts and the social actions or purposes for which genres are used in professional settings. As a multi-case study with an auto-ethnographic component, the study collected data according to relevance, accessibility and significance as evidence to assist in answering the RQs. The study was located in a vocational teacher training centre. The study participants comprised two education development officers and myself. Various methods, including interviews, observations and workplace texts were employed to collect genuine, relevant and significant data. As I was an insider researcher in this study, these methods helped provide context-rich descriptions and allowed for critical reflection. Numerous workplace genres were collected for textual and genre analysis. The results show that in a highly text-mediated workplace, texts and writing are integral and indispensable constructs to the sustenance of work and its social purposes as well as signifying membership in the professional community of education development officers. Workplace genres were found to be used to achieve work goals and to carry out social actions by a group of people and rarely are the actions of a single education development officer alone. Education development officers engage in literacy practices – their work tools – to achieve work goals and to gain recognition of their membership of a given professional community. The study categorised genres and text types. Education development officers used combinations of text types for the target genres that were mostly education and training related. In the process of workplace writing, they also drew upon genre knowledge in the areas of structural elements (formal knowledge), procedural practices (process knowledge), intended purposes (rhetorical knowledge) and domain specific (subject-matter knowledge). They developed an understanding of these relationships and improved their work through repeated engagement in conventional forms and communicative practices. Development of workplace literacy and genre knowledge was a collaborative effort that required proximal learning and guidance. The study argues that genre-based writing training should be added to existing professional development programmes to acknowledge the value and importance of the workplace as an authentic context for literacy learning.