Competence profiles of vocational teachers in Sweden

Context: Vocational teachers' professional work builds on both vocational and teaching competence, requiring vocational teachers to balance multiple identities in their professional practice. As a professional group coming to education from different vocational disciplines, vocational teachers also have various educational backgrounds, teaching experience, or competence profiles. Nevertheless, teacher training programmes treat them as a homogeneous group. This study aims to identify competence profiles among vocational teachers in Sweden and analyse background factors associated with these competence profiles. Methods: Data was collected via an online survey, asking vocational teachers to respond to questions on how important they considered different competences to be for vocational teaching. The vocational teachers also rated to what extent they had achieved different competences. The sample included 280 vocational teachers from various disciplines, representing both high schools and adult education schools. The survey data was analysed using k-means clustering. Findings: Two main competence profiles emerged in the analyses. Profile 1 had mainly male vocational teachers with extended occupational experience and limited teaching experience. These teachers reported lower achieved competence in all areas compared to teachers in Profile 2. Profile 2 included mostly female vocational teachers with longer teaching experience and more limited occupational experience. A higher percentage of these teachers had teacher training, and they reported higher achieved competence in all areas. Conclusions: Several background factors were associated with these two competence profiles, but no relations of cause and effect were proved. The competence profiles rather highlight the differences and different learning needs among groups of vocational teachers, leading to the conclusion that vocational teachers in Profile 1 might be in need of further or a different type of support in their professional development.