AMO (ability, motivation, and opportunity) and the development and/or acquisition of the key qualifications carpentry students need during their period of work experience

Abstract

Since the 80’s, there is a growing demand for employees that possess generic qualifications (for example key qualifications) that are broadly applicable and enable an employee to adapt to changes. However, at the ROC Nijmegen, there seems to be a gap between the key qualifications that carpentry students have and the key qualifications demanded by their future employers. Therefore, the research of this master thesis gives insight into the key qualifications carpentry students need to develop and/or acquire during their period of work experience. Furthermore, the influence of AMO (ability, motivation, and opportunity) on the development and/or acquisition of key qualifications is studied. The research question of this master thesis is: do carpentry students develop and/or acquire the key qualifications they need during their period of work experience and what is the influence of ability, motivation, and opportunity? The most interesting finding is that the carpentry students do not display and are unaware of the importance to develop and/or acquire the key qualifications learning to learn, identification, knowledge of the organization, representativeness, complying with safety measures, willingness to take part in further learning, and emancipatory behavior. Furthermore, results showed which factors of AMO form a barrier or facilitate the development and/or acquisition of the carpentry student’s key qualifications.