 On the concept and the design of a study on learning transfer at the core of dual structured vocational education 
The end of professional education in alternating (France) or dual structures (Germany) clearly consists in professionalising the learners by offering knowledge, developing competences and in enabling them to get integrated into the communities of practice. This aim is realised in professional schools and at the workplace, from which arises the question – discussed in this field of research for decades – on the nature of the relationship between the learning in academic and working contexts. There have been given quite a number of answers to this also in the French speaking discourses. This paper, however, will concentrate on additional answers as suggested by research of Anglo-Saxon origin (connectivity theory, by Guile and Griffith) and by German origin (Komplementaritätstheorie der Bildung, by Jongebloed and Bank). The discussion of the different theoretical approaches leads to a hypothesis, in accordance to which the nexus between the learning of theory and the learning of practical tasks is realised by transfer learning. This hypothesis is first tested in a pilot study that has been carried out in interviewing some of the persons involved: the apprentice-students. The end of professional education in alternating (France) or dual structures (Germany) clearly consists in professionalising the learners by offering knowledge, developing competences and in enabling them to get integrated into the communities of practice. This aim is realised in professional schools and at the workplace, from which arises the question – discussed in this field of research for decades – on the nature of the relationship between the learning in academic and working contexts. There have been given quite a number of answers to this also in the French speaking discourses. This paper, however, will concentrate on additional answers as suggested by research of Anglo-Saxon origin (connectivity theory, by Guile and Griffith) and by German origin (Komplementaritätstheorie der Bildung, by Jongebloed and Bank). The discussion of the different theoretical approaches leads to a hypothesis, in accordance to which the nexus between the learning of theory and the learning of practical tasks is realised by transfer learning. This hypothesis is first tested in a pilot study that has been carried out in interviewing some of the persons involved: the apprentice-students.