Changing power relations in work-based learning: Collaborative and contested relations between tutors, learners and employers

This chapter discusses some of the implications for the role of university tutors and the centrality of educational objectives in circumstances where there is a ‘cultural shift’ towards meeting the needs of learners and employers. The Work-based and Integrative Studies (WBIS) programme at the University of Chester is used as a case study to examine the changing power relations between university tutors, learners, employers and the university, compared with relations on traditional programmes. WBIS is an example of a flexible work-based learning programme using e-learning methods, of which there are increasing numbers globally (Murdoch, 2004). Although programmes like WBIS are unfamiliar to most academic practitioners there are good reasons to suppose we will see many more like it in the near future (CIHE, 2006; SQW and Taylor Nelson Sofres, 2006).