Occupational didactics is a specific didactics rooted in the field of continuing occupational training, which is concerned with what people do in real work and/or learning situations. Some define it as a didactics of activity, as it is interested in «  […] processus de transmission et d’appropriation des connaissances, en vue de les améliorer. » (Vergnaud, 1992, p. 19): in occupational didactics, knowledge is specific to a professional activity.

Occupational didactics therefore proposes to analyse real work situations with a view to developing skills both in training and in the workplace. In so doing, we seek to understand the essential determinants of work situations with a view to their transposition in the creation of training resources (adapted work situation, case study, simulator, problem simulator, organisation of work-study, assessment or positioning tool, etc.).

For almost fifteen years, professional didactics has been taught in the SEFA department mainly to Master's level students in adult education, often with the help of rather limited resources, usually derived from students' work. This teaching in the field of adult education aims to promote engineering to « sortir du ʺformer des gens qui n’existent pas à un travail qui n’existe pasʺ ! » (Jobert, 2013, p. 39). Moreover, the law of 5 September 2018 on vocational training recognises the action of training in a work situation (AFEST), and to define it it was largely inspired by occupational didactics (decree D. 6313-3-2), which makes this demanding teaching topical.

To find out more, watch this AFPA web TV programme produced in 2007, La didactique professionnelle : http://pros.webtv.afpa.fr/tfs/accueil/1495/res:La-didactique-professionnelle