Work-based learning (WBL) is a key development area in Vocational Education and Training in (VET) in Europe. The European policy objectives in ET2020 raise work-based learning in all its forms as one of the focus areas. Related to this objective, the opportunities needed for professional development of VET teachers, trainers and mentors in school and work-based settings are brought up.

The recent research has evidenced, that the arrangements of WBL occur differently in different countries in Europe, that there seems to be a willingness to increase WBL within European employment policies besides a willingness to standardise the approaches in WBL. However, the idea of harmonisation and standardisation is a challenge because the education systems in different countries follow such diverse national and cultural logics based on different historical developments in the national sociopolitical, economic and educational contexts. Based on the European policy objectives, the Baltic countries have intended to promote and expand workbased learning in their VET and to execute closer mutual collaboration. In this development, the training for WBL tutors has been recognised as one of the key elements.

This research is an integral part of an experimentation which purpose was to develop and test a professional development model for WBL tutors in the Baltic countries. In this model the tutors from VET, called VET tutors or teachers, and the tutors from enterprises or workplaces, called workplace tutors, were trained jointly in so-called tandem training. The purpose of the research within the experimentation was to find evidence of the impact of the joint WBL tutor training: how the tutors participating in joint training develop their skills related to WBL. Furthermore, the research sought to answer the question of how the joint trainings support the development of cooperation between VET schools and enterprises or any type of workplace.

The experimentation methodology was developed according to panel design based on the ”before and after” approach in order to collect information on the trained WBL tutors in the beginning and six months after their training. This was complemented with the Participatory Action Research concept of the cyclic process. The training cycles were repeated three times in a row in the form of planning (defining and reformulating the tandem training approach and tools), implementation (the WBL tutor tandem trainings) and evaluation of the impacts (through data collection and analysis from WBL tutors in addition to informants of other parties), accompanied with participatory self-reflections by the project partners for further development.

The main direct informants were the VET school tutors and workplace tutors, who participated in the WBL tutor training. The indirect informants were VET students in addition to VET school principals and company managers. Data was collected with online questionnaires which included multiple choice questions but also open questions. These questionnaires were used to collect data from WBL tutors, students and VET school and company managers. Furthermore, group interviews were used to collect data from the Lead Trainers and also some randomly chosen WBL tutors.

The research showed that the tandem training generated learning experiences concerning the individuals’ knowledge, skills and attitudes, and that the training was considered useful overall. However, the research did not demonstrate the significant impact of the participants’ competence.