Our Research
As an institute that champions excellence in Continuing Education and Training, IAL undertakes research projects that examine the various aspects of adult learning and development. The data we gather and the results we analyse enable us to further the advancement of the CET sector in Singapore, and inform policy making and decisions.

A Portrait of the Adult Educator in Singapore
Prof Andrew Brown, Rebecca Ye, Annie Karmel
This research endeavours to develop an understanding of who WSQ Adult Educators (AEs) in Singapore are. While the professionalisation of this group is a key interest of the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), little is known about the different types of people who actually make up this group, or how they negotiate their careers as adult educators.
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Practitioner Research for Professional Learning in CET
Dr Helen Bound
The purpose of this research project is to identify the range of pedagogical beliefs of Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ trainers, trainers’ enactment of those beliefs and the ways in which context mediates these beliefs. In addition, through the process of engaging practitioners (trainers) in undertaking their own research, the project aims to explore how this process enables reflective practice, and to work towards developing possible models for professional learning involving practitioner research and reflective practice.
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Singapore WSQ, Workplace Learning and Assessment
Dr Helen Bound, Magdalene Lin
This report confirms the understanding that WSQ training is predominantly classroom-based. More importantly, according to available statistics, the delivery of WSQ in 2009 was totally classroom-based. While our experience indicated that in 2010 there was workplace learning taking place, the extent of workplace learning is very limited. This is in sharp contrast to the delivery of competency-based training in a number of other countries. The preference for classroom delivery has resulted in limited examples of learning and assessment arrangements that take place in the workplace, and the use of different terminology (e.g. workplace learning and on-the-job training) to mean the same thing. The use of different terminology, while inevitable amongst lay people, can be a source of confusion and indicative of a need for a conceptual framework for those working within a particular system. The study was conducted in two stages, stage one examined the current delivery modes and ways in which workplace learning was valued; stage two consists of four semi-ethnographic case studies of workplace learning.
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