Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren

Learning in focus groups : An analytical dimension for enhancing focus group research

The focus group is a research methodology in which a small group of participants gathers to discuss a specified issue under the guidance of a moderator. The discussions are tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed. Notably, the interaction between focus group participants has seldom been evaluated, analysed or discussed in empirical research. We argue that considering the focus group in light of current research into interaction in problem-based learning (PBL) tutorial groups would facilitate the deliberate exploitation of group processes in designing focus groups, staging data collection and analysing and interpreting data. When the analytical focus shifts from mere content analysis to an analysis of what the participants themselves are trying to learn, one can explore not only what the participants are talking about, but also how they are trying to understand and conceptualise the issue under discussion.

From Senior Student to Novice Worker : Learning Trajectories in Political Science, Psychology and Mechanical Engineering

This longitudinal study focuses on the transition from higher education to working life. Research has hitherto described the transition in rather general terms, and there is still only limited knowledge about how graduates construe themselves as professionals, or how they experience the transition to the sociocultural contexts of working life. In this study, the transition is viewed as a trajectory between different communities of practice. Three different Master’s programmes at Linköping University are focused on and compared: political science, psychology and mechanical engineering. The specific aims are to: (i) identify aspects of identity and knowledge formation as reported by informants, both as senior students and later as novice workers with 18 months of work experience; (ii) identify features of discourses of knowledge and competence operating in the programmes and working life; and (iii) to relate the results to differences in the way the programmes are designed. The results indicate that the psychology programme prepares for working life in a rational way, that is, the generic skills and substantive knowledge acquired seem to correspond to the demands of professional work. The other programmes stand out as preparing for working life either by providing generic skills that need to be transformed in professional work, or by containing elements that mainly play a ritual role rather than corresponding to the demands of working life.

A phenomenographic approach to research in medical education.

Context  Phenomenography is a qualitative approach to research which has revolutionised the way that researchers and teachers think about the processes and outcomes of learning in higher education. Phenomenography has also been used successfully in medical and health care research for the last 20 years. Phenomenography provides a lens through which to view certain types of research question. It also provides direction for how to empirically carry out the research.

Towards socio‐material approaches in simulation‐based education: lessons from complexity theory

Review studies of simulation‐based education (SBE) consistently point out that theory‐driven research is lacking. The literature to date is dominated by discourses of fidelity and authenticity – creating the ‘real’ – with a strong focus on the developing of clinical procedural skills. Little of this writing incorporates the theory and research proliferating in professional studies more broadly, which show how professional learning is embodied, relational and situated in social – material relations. A key concern for medical educators concerns how to better prepare students for the unpredictable and dynamic ambiguity of professional practice; this has stimulated the movement towards socio‐material theories in education that address precisely this question.

A winding road – professional trajectories from higher education to working life: a case study of political science and psychology graduates

This qualitative and longitudinal study focuses on graduate employment and the development of graduate employment paths. The aim of this article is to explore the present professional trajectory from higher education to working life, with particular reference to graduates from two different study programmes at Linköping University in Sweden: Political Science and Psychology. More specifically, the article focuses on how graduates construe their professional trajectories in terms of their envisaged future work as senior students, and later as novice and early-career professionals with 18 and 34 months of work life experience. The results indicate that graduates’ professional identities and vision of their future work change over time. The set of categories, depicting the graduates’ vision and experiences of their professional trajectories, do not seem to follow a specific temporal and logical progression in their career. Rather, they appear in different order and at different points in time after graduation. The results, instead, endorse the discourse of lifelong learning and the need for flexibility and employability on the labour market.

From expert student to novice professional

Students entering higher education expect that their studies should lead them towards some form of professional career. They come to university wilh a range of ecpectations for their learning as well as for the outcomes of their learning. In this age. when complex internationalised professions are the main soure of work for graduales, sludents need to prepare themselves for a future that can be volatile, changeable and challenging. Our overall aim in this book is to show how students navigate their way through learning and become effective students and how they shift the focus of their learning away from the formalism associated with the university situation towards the exigencies of working life. In this sense. we explore how poople move from being expert sludents tio novice professionals starting to establish themslves in a profession. When a person is an expert at somelhing they are usually able to demonstrate an excellent skill or understanding. whilst a novice is usually a relative newcomer to an arca who will undertake some sort of probation (articulated or not) before he or she can be fully embraced by the particular area. We look at how students become pre-professional experts. in the sense that they hold and demonstrate professional knowledge and disposilion, and reel a personal interest and engagement with a specific discipline area that leads them into professional practice. However. when these expert students finally make the transition to working life their profcssional expertise is subsumed as they take en a novice role in the work place. So. we consider how students make this transition from e xpert to novice and perhaps back again.To support the ideas presented in this book. We will utilise a decade of research undertaken in countries halfa world away from each other - Sweden and Australiaand use the combined outcomes to present a model ofprofessional leaming. Rather than building our theory out of our own common experience. we use empirical research gnthered from students and leachers to show how student, negotiate the forms of professional knowledge they encounter as part of their studies and how they integrate their understandings of a future professional world with professional knowledge and learning. As students move from seeing themselves as learners, they take on more of a novice professional identity. which, in turn, provides a stronger motivation for their fonnal studies.

Conceptualising Professional Identification as Flexibility, Stability and Ambivalence

This chapter discusses physicians’ and engineers ’ professional identity formation through engagement in practice. First, the concept of professional identification as the enactment of life politics is advanced. Professional identification is here viewed as an ongoing process in the context of lifelong learning, where learners’ subjectivities and life trajectories are significant. Second, the concepts flexibility, stability and ambivalence are introduced and used dialectically as analytical tools for understanding physicians’ and engineers’ experiences of learning through their different practices. In discussing these concepts, we illustrate the conception of life-politics by means of empirical examples of how subjectivity , everyday life experiences, and conditions in different practices interplay in the process of professional identification. Third, we show how the processes of becoming an engineer or a physician stand as substantially different processes, seemingly more or less articulated and determined. Moreover, being an engineer or physician reflects additional aspects of learning through the process of identification with the professional role, including the impact of the work itself and of the personal self. In all, our findings suggest that the engineers identify with the content and nature of the work itself as a flexible strategy, thereby making the identification with the profession ambivalent. The physicians, on the other hand, seem to build a character as a doctor with which they identify permanently, thereby shaping a fragile boundary between their selves and the profession. Finally, an interpretive model is proposed, where the life-politics of the individuals is expressed through flexibility, stability, and ambivalence.

Recognising practice epistemology in the health professions

The current climate of accountability and public scrutiny in the health and social care professions demands a high level of responsibility by health professionals in terms of understanding, updatin ...

Confronting Globalisation: Learning from Intercontinental Collaboration

Higher education institutions are responding to globalisation in various ways. This study describes and analyses challenges encountered in a recent case of global collaboration between four universities on different continents in developing a web‐based master’s program. The key issue was how to develop programs in a way that is fair for the different countries involved. The focus of the paper is on tensions between local and national contexts, rules and resources and the creation of a common global program. ‘Agency’, ‘structure’ and ‘frame factor’ are used as analytical concepts to help understand the dynamics of the collaboration and the character of the program.

One site fits all? A student ward as a learning practice for interprofessional development

Abstract Interprofessional training wards (IPTWs), aiming to enhance interprofessional collaboration, have been implemented in medical education and evaluated over the last decade. The Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University has, in collaboration with the local health provider, arranged such training wards since 1996, involving students from the medical, nursing, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy programs. Working together across professional boundaries is seen as a necessity in the future to achieve sustainable and safe healthcare. Therefore, educators need to arrange learning contexts which enhance students’ interprofessional learning. This article shows aspects of how the arrangement of an IPTW can influence the students’ collaboration and learning. Data from open-ended questions from a questionnaire survey, during autumn term 2010 and spring term 2011 at an IPTW, was analyzed qualitatively using a theoretical framework of practice theory. The theoretical lens gave a picture of how architectures of the IPTW create a clash between the “expected” professional responsibilities and the “unexpected” responsibilities of caring work. Also revealed was how the proximity between students opens up contexts for negotiations and boundary work. The value of using a theoretical framework of professional learning in practice within the frames of healthcare education is discussed.