School choice in an information desert: A multimodal website analysis of vocational education offerings

Alison L. Hilton, Sian Chapman and Laura B. Perry
Murdoch University, Australia

Australian schooling is characterised by high levels of choice and competition, and education policymaking promotes the dissemination of information to assist families to choose a school. The aim of this study is to examine whether current information sharing is adequate for informing school choice for young people seeking vocational education and training (VET) opportunities. We examined secondary school websites in Western Australia, a state that is experiencing severe skills shortages, to ascertain the nature and extent to which information about VET in secondary schools is publicly available. Our findings showed that information about VET programs is largely invisible on school websites, as well as on the state jurisdiction's website (Department of Education WA, n.d.).
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Authors: Dr Alison Hilton (corresponding author) is a Lecturer in Education at Murdoch University. Her areas of expertise are secondary education and vocational education and training (VET). Her research interests include teacher education focusing on student experience in higher education, pre-service teacher professional experience, and VET. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1242-0577 Email: a.hilton@murdoch.edu.au Dr Sian Chapman is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Murdoch University. Her research interests include education policy and practice, teacher agency and change, and understanding systemic difference through complexity theory. Sian explores these concepts across a range of topics including arts education, teacher education and school diversity. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7474-0277 Email: sian.chapman@murdoch.edu.au Professor Laura Perry is Professor of Education at Murdoch University. She draws on the fields of education policy, comparative education, and sociology of education to examine inequalities of educational opportunities and outcomes, especially as they occur between secondary schools. Her research interests include educational marketisation, school segregation, school stratification, school funding, and opportunity to learn. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4252-2379 Email: l.perry@murdoch.edu.au Please cite as: Hilton, A., Chapman, S. & Perry, L. B. (2024). School choice in an information desert: A multimodal website analysis of vocational education offerings. Issues in Educational Research, 34(2), 529-546. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/hilton.pdf