The reaction of degree students to GNVQ Available to Purchase

Final‐year students, numbering 124, from the BA (Hons) hotel and catering business course participated in a GNVQ core skills scheme over two academic years (1993‐94, 1994‐95). Their reactions towards participation were captured and recorded, primarily by questionnaire. Initial hostility gave way to gradual acceptance. A combination of a growing awareness of the extrinsic value of a GNVQ unit and a greater level of tutor support account for this change. Previous experience of a GNVQ type of approach influences initial reaction but not ultimate success. A traditional A level background enables students to cope with a “vocational A level” approach, provided that the students are convinced of the value of doing so. As expected, as hostility declines, successful completion of GNVQ units increases. More favourable resourcing of the scheme, in its second year of operation, eliminates a previously observed correlation between degree classification and GNVQ success.