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Is educational research(ing) a profession?Examining issues of professional status and developmentalism
Linda Evans,
School of Education, University of [email protected]
The impetus
Questionable quality of educational research Interest in the sociology of the professions
professionalism professionality
Donald McIntyre (1996 BERA presidential address): ‘How helpful and how necessary is it for at least some
of us to see ourselves as professional educational researchers?’
Professionalism, professionality and professions:
concepts and substance
What defines a profession? McIntyre: professionalism:
expertise extensive knowledge creative intelligence a degree of perfectionism
Professionalism as occupational/social control Professionalism as a service level agreement Professionalism incorporates homogeneity
My interpretation of professionalism
Homogeneity is elusive underpinned by the diversity of individuality
Professionalism is the ‘plural’ of individuals’ professionalities professionality writ large
Hoyle (1970s) distinguished between professionalism and professionality: professionalism – status-related professionality – relates to individual practitioners’
skills, knowledge, procedures, attitudes ‘extended’-‘restricted’ professionality continuum
‘Restricted’ and ‘Extended’ Professionals(adapted from Hoyle, 1975)
‘restricted’ professionals: adopt an intuitive approach
to practice use skills derived from
practical experience do not reflect on or analyse
their practice are unintellectual in outlook
and attitudes avoid change and are set in
their ways
‘extended’ professionals: adopt a rational approach to
practice use skills developed from
both theory and practice are reflective and analytical
practitioners adopt intellectual
approaches to the job experiment with and
welcome new ideas
My definitions Professionality is: an ideologically-, attitudinally-,
intellectually-, and epistemologically-based stance on the part of an individual, in relation to the practice of the profession to which s/he belongs, and which influences her/his professional practice.
Professionalism is: professionality-influenced practice that is consistent with commonly-held consensual delineations of a specific profession and that both contributes to and reflects perceptions of the profession’s purpose and status and the specific nature, range and levels of service provided by and expertise prevalent within the profession, as well as the ethical code underpinning it.
Key components of professionalism
What practitioners do How they do it What they know and understand Where and how they acquire their knowledge
and understanding What kinds of attitudes they hold What codes of behaviour they adhere to What purpose(s) they perform What quality of service they provide The level of consistency incorporated into the
above
Key components of professionalism
subjective professionalism
functionalcomponent
intellectualcomponent
attitudinalcomponent
proceduraldimension
productivedimension
processualdimension
evaluativedimension
motivationaldimension
perceptionaldimension
epistemologicaldimension
rationalisticdimension
comprehensivedimension
The intellectual component of professionalism
intellectualcomponent
epistemologicaldimension
rationalisticdimension
comprehensivedimension
What is the basis of practitioners’ knowledge?
To what extent do practitioners apply reason to decision making?
What do practitioners know andunderstand?
Common sense and experience?Research and/or scholarship?
•In which disciplines/subjects?•What depth?•What width?•Contextual differences?
Is practice underpinned by rationality, intuition or a mediationof the two?
What does the professional knowledge base comprise?Are there specialist areas?Are there minimum (general) practitioner knowledgerequirements?
The attitudinal component of professionalism
attitudinalcomponent
evaluativedimension
motivationaldimension
perceptualdimension
How do practitioners evaluate things (issues, situations, people, activity, etc.)?How do they evaluate their own profession and its purpose?
What is the basis of practitioners’ motivation?What factors influence motivation?
How do practitioners perceive things (issues, situations, people, activity, etc.)?How do they perceive their own profession and its purpose?
What values do practitioners hold?How widespread/consensual are these values?Are there any key/core values?
How motivated are practitioners?What motivates them?
What perceptions do practitioners hold?What perceptions do they not hold?How widespread/consensual arespecific perceptions?Are there any key/core perceptions?
The functional component of professionalism
functionalcomponent
proceduraldimension
productivedimension
processualdimension
What procedures do practitioners apply to their practice?What hierarchical procedures operate within the workforce?What stratification exists within the workforce?
What is the nature of practitioners’ output?How much do practitioners produce? (or ‘do’?)What (if any) productive yardsticks guide them?
What processes do practitioners apply to their practice?
practitioners’ modes of communicating and interacting?mode(s) of meeting contractualrequirements?How are responsibility and authoritydistributed?What layers of practice exist?
What do practitioners ‘do’ atwork – their remit and responsibilities?Is the workload determined by the clock – set hours?Is workload determined by the task – in response to need?
gathering data?examining?analysing?disseminating?writing/composing written material?learning?collegiality?
Is educational research(ing) a profession?
On the basis of homogeneity – consistency of excellent practice and service – no, educational research is not a profession: underpinned by a diversity reflecting individuals’
professionality orientations quality of research produced is variable much of it is low quality
The researcher located at the ‘restricted’ extreme of the professionality continuum typically:
The researcher located at the ‘extended’ extreme of the professionality continuum typically:
conducts research that lacks rigour; conducts highly rigorous research;
draws upon basic research skills; draws upon basic and advanced research skills;
fails to develop or extend her/his methodological competence;
strives constantly to develop and extend her/his methodological competence;
utilises only established research methods; adapts established research methods and develops methodology;
fails to develop basic research findings; generates and develops theory from research findings;
perceives research methods as tools and methodology as a task-directed, utilitarian process;
perceives research methodology as a field of study in itself;
applies low level analysis to research data; strives constantly to apply deep levels of analysis to research data;
perceives individual research studies as independent and free-standing;
recognises the value of, and utilises, comparative analysis, meta-analysis, synthesis, replication, etc.;
perceives individual research studies as finite and complete; constantly reflects upon, and frequently revisits and refines, his/her own studies;
struggles to criticise literature and others’ research effectively;
has developed the skill of effective criticism and applies this to the formulation of his/her own arguments;
publishes mainly in ‘lower grade’ academic journals and in professional journals/magazines;
publishes frequently in ‘high ranking’ academic journals;
is associated mainly with research findings that fall into the ‘tips for practitioners’ category of output.
disseminates ground-breaking theoretical issues and contributes to, and takes a lead in developing, discourse on theory.
‘Extended’ and ‘Restricted’ Educational Researcher Professionality
Is educational research(ing) a profession?
The concept of a profession is changing.
the ‘professionalization of everyone’ (Williams)
‘Profession’ is no longer an exclusive label.
Therefore, educational research(ing) may be considered a profession.
From professionalism to ‘developmentalism’
Developmentalism: a commitment to (self)-develop(ment)
professional development
a new basis for evaluating occupations How developmentalist a culture is manifested? How developmentalist are individual
practitioners? a new criterion for professional quality
Features of developmentalism
Practitioners with strong developmentalist attitudes will typically:
be analytical; be self-critical; manifest perfectionist tendencies; lie towards the ‘extended’ end of the
professionality continuum.
Educational research(ing): a non-developmentalist ‘profession’?
For the most part: no evident commitment to CPD compared with
other professions: social work pharmacy teaching medicine
‘ostensible’ CPD no culture of developmentalism ‘riding a bicycle’ culture There are individual exceptions to this.