Challenge and Innovation in Professional Development

• In Event: Developing a Research Agenda for Cross-Professional Development

Abstract

This paper draws upon a Division I recently published collection of education research which examines professional development issues across the lifespan for an international group including: academics, accountants, community physicians, dentists, managers, military commanders, nurse practitioners and surgeons (McKee A and Eraut M: 2012
Globally, professions appear to be subject to more intensive and extensive public accountability which is creating additional educational imperatives. The landscape of professions education is changing, and the consequences for professional development are only beginning to emerge. Education researchers’ studies focussed upon particular professional priorities using a broad range of research methodologies including: case-study, survey, ethnography, educational evaluation and longitudinal research.
Learning across professions is examined within three themes. 1) Innovation occurs where the purpose of professions educators is to interact responsively to changing needs. These are explored in terms of new knowledge, practices and roles. 2) Learning trajectories describe learning developed over time through different roles and contexts. Drawing upon socio-cultural and personal perspectives of competence, the complex and situational nature of learning and practice is examined. 3) Identity is key to understanding personal and organizational transitions. Linked to the concept of lifespan learning, identity is deployed to understand how the contexts in which learning takes place influence what is being learned and how it is being learned. Each theme is supported with examples.

Three key shifts in approaches to professional development were evident. The relationship between formal and work-based learning is reconfiguring across the professional lifespan. Educators and researchers who create new contexts and approaches for learning appear better able to confront challenge and change. The lens of professional development has widened from an emphasis upon what an individual should learn and do to the learning of groups, teams and beyond that the systemic and contextual dimensions of change.
Cross- cutting themes are identified for future research.

Author

• Anne Christine McKee, King's College London