Maximise chances for struggling prevocational students: a framework of effective teaching principles

The increasing complexity and diversity of students in prevocational secondary education creates an exceptionally challenging context for teachers. With the attempt to realize more inclusive education, students with different educational needs and abilities, mostly characterized by ethnically diverse backgrounds and/or low socioeconomic disadvantages, are entering prevocational education. Often, these students do not reach the minimum level of basic literacy (Carpentier, 2020), which is crucial to successfully participate and contribute to our complex society and social life. In order to qualitatively educate these vulnerable students, a powerful learning environment (PLE) in prevocational education is crucial. The purpose of this study is to identify decisive teaching principles, that are proven to be effective in designing PLEs. To this end, we conduct a best fit framework synthesis which is a systematic review method. As we are finalizing this review study in April 2022, the current proposal reports salient features from the first systematic search . This search results in nine identified themes for PLEs : safe and positive learning environment; classroom management; quality of instruction; use and development of 21st century skills; adaptive teaching; challenging learning activities in authentic contexts; pedagogical (content) knowledge; teacher beliefs; and teacher team collaboration.