From gaps to transaction: Reflections on a long-term collaborative research practice in VET

The purpose of this article is to reflect on and theorise collaborative research practices. Research–practice collaborations are widely recognised and encouraged by means of university strategies, policy intentions, and funding requirements. One way to provide for and strengthen collaborative research in education is to form long-term partnerships between schools and universities. In this reflective account, we draw on our own experiences from doing research in the field of vocational education and training (VET) as participants in a long-term collaboration among two social and health care vocational colleges and two university departments. Assisted by Dewey’s pragmatic approach to learning as transaction, we seek to move beyond the binary of ‘research’ and ‘practice’ as constituting a gap to be bridged between two forms of knowledge. Instead, we conceive of the collaboration as an emerging ‘third context’ in its own right created by various activities, all of which involve both theoretical and experiential knowledge.