Suchergebnisse

Further training, labor market, stratification, social inequality, life course. - Further training is understood as any professionally-oriented course or formalized work-related learning activity; it takes place after leaving formal education and entering the labor market. A large body of literature mainly based on cross-sectional research shows that access to and participation in further training is predominantly determined by two factors, individual level of education and occupational status. This research departs from previous work and its cross-sectional focus on socio-economic stratifiers by adopting a longitudinal modelling strategy and incorporating psychological and social psychological factors into sociological research. I focus on the case of Germany and employ data drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel study. There are two main theoretical and empirical contributions of this dissertation. (1) Further training is viewed from the perspective of life course sociology; recurrent engagement across adulthood is phrased as prolonged educational careers which extend beyond formal schooling. Sequence and cluster analyses show that participation in training varies by educational background and previous training experience, underlining a two-fold path-dependency. Additionally, results align with the life course concept of cumulative advantage/disadvantage. Frequent and continuous participation in training is associated with higher occupational status and more favorable labor market positioning in terms of stable full-time employment; whereas training abstainers and irregular participants are over-represented among marginally and unemployed. (2) Further training is conceptualized as a function of demographics, socio-economic and work-related factors. However, this is extended by incorporating two more subjective mechanisms which subtly are at play in determining participation in training: attitudes and personality. (a) Framed in terms of rational choice theory, training attitudes represent subjective evaluations of the perceived training utility (qualification or adaptation); a general career orientation and different forms of perceived training constraints are also taken into account. Findings from random-effects panel regressions reveal that adaptation utility and career orientation facilitate training, while perceived constraints reduce the training likelihood, everything else equal. For low educated individuals, positive evaluations of the adaptive capacities of training and strong career orientation can be interpreted as an equalizer in access to training; their training propensity is no longer significantly different from similar highly qualified individuals. (b) Personality traits are understood as a productive set of non-cognitive skills which drive behaviors and determine socio-economic life outcomes like educational performance, labor market participation and status attainment. In the context of further training, specifically two traits matter in increasing training participation: openness to new experiences and internal control beliefs. In light of these findings this dissertation concludes that further training is an extension of previous educational and occupational stratification. However, there are exceptions; low educated individuals with positive assessments of the utility of training seem to overcome the educational barrier in access to further training. Also, attitudes and personality should be systematically considered in training research as this research shows that these softer qualities may prove more effective in reducing unequal training chances over the life course.

Background: Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) revealed that countries systematically differ in their respondents' literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments skills; skill levels also vary by gender, age, level of education or migration background. Similarly, systematic differences have been documented with respect to adults' participation in education, which can be considered as a means to develop and maintain skills. From a psychological perspective, motivation to learn is considered a key factor associated with both skill development and participation in (further) education. In order to account for motivation when analyzing PIAAC data, four items from the PIAAC background questionnaire were recently compiled into a motivation-to-learn scale. This scale has been found to be invariant (i.e., showing full weak and partial strong measurement invariance) across 21 countries. Methods: This paper presents further analyses using multiple-group graded response models to scrutinize the validity of the motivation-to-learn scale for group comparisons. Results: Results indicate at least partial strong measurement invariance across gender, age groups, level of education, and migration background in most countries under study (all CFI > .95, all RMSEA < .08). Thus, the scale is suitable for comparing both means and associations across these groups. Conclusions: Results are discussed in light of country characteristics, challenges of measurement invariance testing, and potential future research using PIAAC data.

Background: Despite the importance of lifelong learning as a key to individual and societal prosperity, we know little about adult motivation to engage in learning across the lifespan. Building on educational psychological approaches, this article presents a measure of Motivation-to-Learn using four items from the background questionnaire of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Methods: We used multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses for ordered categorical data to investigate the scale's dimensionality and measurement invariance across countries. Regression analyses were used to investigate the scale's criterion validity. Results: Results show that the proposed four-item scale fits the data considerably better than the original six-item scale labeled Readiness-to-Learn. Further analyses support the scale's configural, metric (weak) and partial scalar (strong) measurement invariance across 21 countries. As expected, Motivation-to-Learn has significant relations to the working population's engagement in learning in terms of participation in non-formal education over the last 12 months. These relations remain relevant after taking literacy as an indicator of level of education into account. Conclusion: The Motivation-to-Learn scale presented here may be used to indicate adult motivation in cross-country comparisons. The potential of using the scale in future PIAAC analyses and research on adult learning is discussed.