Abstract

A Personal Professional Theory (PPT) is a personal theory of professional action concerning craftsmanship in a specific occupational domain. A PPT consists of personal knowledge and beliefs concerning adequate professional performance (Argyris & Schön, 1974; Eraut, 1994; Kelchtermans & Vandenberghe, 1994). It is assumed that a PPT directs professional behaviour and serves as a frame of interpretation during learning activities. The development of a PPT means that novice learners grow into the professional culture of a specific occupational domain, which exists of the collective view of professionals concerning adequate professional performance and values (Guile & Griffiths, 2003).

We propose a Reflective Apprenticeship Model (RAM) as a learning approach to facilitate and support novice learners to develop and explicate their own PPT. In the RAM, students are stimulated to integrate and internalize knowledge, experiences and beliefs in their own PPT. Negotiation of meaning (Bruner, 1985) is an important feature of the RAM; students give personal meaning to new knowledge and professional experiences. Teachers and trainers guide reflection and collaborative learning processess of students by their coaching, monitoring, modelling and scaffolding activities (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989). These activities of students and teachers/trainers will be taken together in 4 dynamic stages; (1) orientation, (2) performing, (3) organization and (4) personification. These stages of development are described in Table 1.

Stage Learning activities Teaching methods

• 1. Orientation Observation Modelling
• 2. Performing Explication Scaffolding
• 3. Organization Structuring Coaching
• 4. Personification Internalisation Monitoring

Methods

The RAM serves as point of departure in order to redesign a vocational training course. The RAM will be elaborated in collaboration with teachers and trainers from the particular training course. The interventions are conducted at two levels; tasks will be redesigned and teaching methods will be influenced by direct instructions and training. The RAM will be implemented in the domain of Social Work Professions. The research consists of one experimental condition and three control conditions.

• Condition School Domain
• Experiment A Social Work
• Control 1 A Social Work
• Control 2 A Nursing
• Control 3 B Social Work

Each condition exists of 25 students and 4 teachers and trainers. Data of students and teachers will be collected by means of questionnaires, interviews, observations and assignments. By using a pre- and post test design, the development of students' PPT will be described by means of concept maps, questionnaires and learning assignments.

Results

At the moment of writing this proposal, the implementation and data collection are not finished yet. In the presentation, the theoretical concept of PPTs will be discussed and the RAM will be presented and illustrated by means of empirical examples. It will be expected that students in the experimental condition are more aware of their PPTs and that they show more structured and coherent PPTs.

Bibliography

• Argyris, C., & Schön, D.A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA.: Addison-Wesley.
• Bruner, J.S. (1985). The role of interaction formats in language acquisition. In J.P. Forgas (Ed.), Language and social situations. pp. 31-46. New York. Springer.
• Collins, A., Brown, J.S. & Newman, S.E. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the craft of reading, writing and mathematics. In L.B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 453-494). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Eraut, M. (1994). Developing professional knowledge and competence. Londen/Washington, D.C.: Falmer Press.
• Guile, D. & Griffiths, T. (2003). A Connective Model of learning: the implications for work process knowledge. European Educational Research Journal, 2, no. 1, pp. 56 - 73.
• Kelchtermans, G., & Vandenberghe, R. (1994). Teachers' professional development: A biographi¬cal perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 26, pp. 45-62.

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