Educational Theory of Apprenticeship - Factors of Success in Apprenticeship

Factors of Success in Apprenticeship

According to Pratt (1998), successful development through apprenticeship involves three key factors. To become a master of the field, the learning process must be active, social, and authentic. These points will lead to the learner’s greater understanding of the field and improved future contributions:

• Activity concerns the level to which the learner is physically and mentally stimulated within the environment. Successful trainers allow the student to be highly involved in the processes of decision making and action because they know that it is the doing that will have the most effect on the student’s schema. In training to drive an automobile, students will never be able to pass without a physical examination of driving ability. To prepare for this, learners are given the opportunity to drive in safe areas. This active use of the tool prepares the student for its later, tested use.

• Second is the concept of sociality. Students must interact constantly with the tools for success, the teachers and the beneficiaries of the work. This holistic approach will further integrate the student into the interrelated web of action and consequence within the field. For example, a server training at a restaurant will not only follow a more experienced server, but interact with the customers, fellow employees, and management in the same time frame. The server will thus establish connections between all these groups and the personnel that embody them, preparing the server for day to day activities.

• Finally, authenticity is essential to apprenticeship. This is the establishment of a mental connection between the work of the student in a particular field and the comprehension of the greater public. An electrical engineer may understand the intricacies and challenges of computer panels, but this is only half of the required knowledge. They must also learn how most people perceive these panels and their interaction with them. From this understanding of the other end of spectrum, the engineer will better understand the achievement and thus authenticity of the community of electrical engineering.