**5. Methodology of research**

In order to research the way that vocational teachers integrate the concepts of signature pedagogies into their day-to-day teaching, data was taken from a series of classroom observations within a vocational college in the Southeast of England. Staff here are routinely observed either within a theory classroom-based lesson or in a practical workshop involving skill-based learning. Observations are part of the quality assurance process and are recorded as a narrative report rather than a tick box approach. These are not graded but teachers are given specific targets for improvement based on what was observed in that session. Data was collected over two academic terms and here both practical and theory sessions were observed. There were 13 lessons observed in total, of these 11 were theory-based sessions with 2 practical ones. The vocational subjects seen were a Construction practical session, two Hairdressing sessions, one practical and one theory based. The other observations came from Engineering, two different theory lessons, Gas, two theory lessons, two Health and Social Care theory lessons, two Media theory sessions and two Plumbing theory sessions. All teachers seen were experienced in their vocational subject having been practitioners first and teachers later in life. In terms of demographics most were middle aged and had been teaching for several years. The Hairdressing and Health and Social Care teachers were female as was one of the Engineering teachers. The Media sessions was split between one male and one female and here the female teacher was a novice teacher in her first year of teaching having spent some years in broadcasting. All the Gas, Construction and Plumbing teachers were male. The observations were written up in full and comments were extracted from the observation feedback and analysed according to the following concepts relating to signature pedagogies in both practical and theory lessons. These were:


Using this data allowed an overall view of how signature pedagogy is incorporated in teaching of vocational learning. The following section outlines the findings of the observed sessions.
