About

Aims and scope

The main focus of this journal is to provide a platform for original empirical investigations in the field of professional, vocational and technical education, comparing the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of different vocational education systems at the school, company and systemic level. The journal fills a gap in the existing literature focusing on empirically-oriented academic research and stimulating the interest in strengthening the vocational part of the educational system, both at the basic and higher education level. Contributions published in this journal cast new light on a broad range of topics related to teaching and learning in vocational education, such as pedagogy practices, apprenticeship, competence development, validation of test instruments and assessment, professional challenges with certain labour-market conditions, and classroom experience. Offering evidence and reports from basic education and training to continuous or adult learning, Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training will appeal not only to academics and researchers in the field of vocational education, but also to policy-makers, policy planners and administrators, school-leaders and trainers.

The journal encourages the submission of high-quality contributions aimed at:

- sharing comprehensive accounts on vocational education

- improving the quality and appeal of vocational/professional pathways, and

- keeping up with current changes on the labour market.

Topics addressed through contributions within the journal might include, but will not be restricted to:

- international comparisons of vocational education systems

- the relationship between context and learning in vocational settings

- measurement of competencies in vocational education and training

- the relationship between the labour market and vocational education

- educational pathways and returns to vocational education and training

- evaluations of reforms in vocational education and training

- efficient workplace learning settings and outcomes

- learning throughout working lives.

The journal has an international multidisciplinary editorial board and also an advisory board with leading international academics in the fields of pedagogy, political science, psychology, sociology and economics.

Benefits of publishing with SpringerOpen

High visibility

Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training and SpringerOpen.

Flexibility

Online publication in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training are included in article alerts and regular email updates.
In addition, articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the copyright and license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from SpringerOpen, please click here.

Open access

All articles published by the Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in the Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the SpringerOpen copyright and license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, SpringerOpen can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

The publication costs for Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training are covered by the by the Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SCCRE), so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.

Indexing services

All articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training are included in:

SCOPUS
Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
Google Scholar
DOAJ
EBSCO Discovery Service
EBSCO Education Source
EBSCO TOC Premier
OCLC
ProQuest Central
ProQuest Education Database
ProQuest Social Science Collection
SCImago
Summon by ProQuest

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by SpringerOpen on SpringerLink.
We are working closely with relevant indexing services including PubMed Central and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) to ensure that articles published in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training will be available in their databases when appropriate.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and the reviewer reports provided to the authors are anonymous.
The benefit of double-blind peer review is that it allows reviewers to judge the manuscript based on content alone, and they are not unconsciously biased by knowledge of who the authors are.
Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two to three experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. Reviewers will also be asked to indicate how interesting and significant the research is. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training should adhere to SpringerOpen's editorial policies.

Once your article is accepted, it will be processed by production and published shortly afterwards. In some cases, articles may be held for a short period of time prior to publication. If you have any concerns or particular requirements please contact the Journal.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training

Articles in Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Empir Res Vocat Educ Train [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Empir Res Vocat Educ Train 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .