Proposal view
| Proposal Type: | Individual Paper |
|---|---|
| Domain: | Knowledge Acquisition and Expertise in Specific Domains |
| SIG: | Learning and Professional Development |
| Type | Submitted Paper |
| Equipment |
Slide projector |
| Paper Details |
|---|
| Title | What Autobiographical Narratives Tell About the Development of Expertise? |
|---|---|
| Abstract | Purpose of this study was to investigate experts’ descriptions of their own development and learning of expertise. The study is qualitative and applies narrative methodology. The subjects of the study were nine experienced professionals, men and women, who represented different professions. Data were gathered by thematic interviews in which the subjects were asked to tell about their earlier life history, growth, self and identity and learning experiences. Results showed that professional learning seems to have autobiographical roots. Learning was described in the data as a discursive process and several different discourse types could be identified from the narratives. |
| Summary | Purpose of this study was to investigate experts’ descriptions of their own development and learning of expertise. The study is qualitative and applies narrative methodology. The beginnings of research on the nature of expertise can be traced to the 1960s, when de Groot (1966), among others, studied the playing skills of chess masters and their information processing during a game. Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, the nature of expertise has been studied in many professional fields. In addition to chess players, for example physicists, radiologists, computer programmers (Chi et al. 1988) and social scientists (Voss et al. 1983) have been studied. One of the limitations of the earlier approach in understanding the development of expertise has been that we have not been able to describe well enough the nature of subjects’ experiences. Studies addressing expert performance in open and ill-defined tasks have shown that the nature of subjects’ experience explains the performance better than the amount or length of experience (Sonnentag 1995; Waltz, Elam & Curtis 1993). Current research on expertise suggest that expertise seems to be contextual and situational and that the development of expertise is also situationally and contextually driven (e.g. Lave & Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). This framework has gained popularity during the last two decades. These studies emphasize the social aspects of learning and knowledge acquisition. Learning is a way of becoming a member and participant in the culture and social network and the acquisition of expertise is part of the process. Therefore, expertise is not, as much as previous approaches assume, an individual characteristic, but situated in the social structures and communicational networks of individuals and groups. The general theme in the studies approaching expertise from the point of social theory of learning has been in the emphasis of the role of context (e.g. Agnew et al. 1997; Brown & Duguid 1994; Wenger 1998). Context is sometimes understood as socially and culturally conditioned aspects of practical communities (anthropological approach). Other definitions may regard context as constituted by environmental circumstances or by the characteristics of artefacts which determine the nature of human activities in the problem situation. Social theory of learning has also emphasized learning as a process of individual identity construction. Participation in the social community is a process of building an identity of a member. Knowledge acquisition and development of expertise may be seen as a part of this process. In this study we want to approach the developemt of expertise from an autobiographical point of view. What do the experts tell about the autobiographical (including learning, development, identity) processes of their own lives. At the moment there are very few studies of expertise applying qualitative methodology. In this study we want to focus on this question using subjects’ own narratives. Methodology and methods The subjects of the study were nine experienced professionals, men and women, who represented different professions. There were three performing actors (two men, one woman), three teachers (one man, two women), a newspaper reporter, a politician and a Lutheran minister. They were all invited to the study on the basis of well-known expertise in their domain areas. The informants’ ages were between 40 to 60 years. The data were gathered by thematic interviews in which the subjects were asked to tell about their earlier life history, growth, self and identity and learning experiences. They were also asked about their professional development and learning in their work. The transcribed interviews were considered as narrative and the analyses were done qualitatively. A typical length of one interview file was 30 to 40 pages. Results The interview showed that all subjects constructed extensive and detailed narratives of their past development and professional learning. Processes related to identity reconstruction existed in all stories. For instance, in an actor’s narrative, identity reconstruction (learning and development) was typically related to his attempts to change actively his life. The same actor also emphasised the importance of being in relationships for his own development. Other significant factors for development mentioned in the narratives were, for instance, one’s tragic life history. The learning discourses the subjects described (explicitly or implicitly) in their narratives could be classified into four categories. The first was named as an intraindividual discourse in which the person learns through the discourses with him/herself. The second discourse category was named as an interindividual discourse in which the focus was on learning from the discourses with others. The persons mentioned in the narrative were typically family members, grandparents, close friends, or some other persons that had made an impact on the person earlier in his/her life. The third category of discourses was named as contextual and cultural. These discourses described learning from participating in the activities of the specific culture or context. Also descriptions of belonging to a certain subculture (e.g. being Karelian, being a member of a certain association, or sports club, etc.) and discourses related to that membersip were classified into this category. Informants described typically having developed multiple identities as a result of these discourses. The fourth discourse type was classified as holistic or integrative discourse that aimed at integrating the person’s self and personal identity. As a conclusion we may say that professional learning seems to have autobiographical roots. Learning was described in this study as a discursive process and several different discourse types could be identified from the narratives. Personal meanings attached to these discourses varied, but typically all informants expressed deep level meanings in the narratives. It was found that people took different positionings towards themselves and their own development in the narratives. Both active positionings and less active positionings towards one’s own development were found. Experts may be more active in positioning and repositioning themselves in the learning discourses. Overall, narrative approach seems to offer new insights in understanding the quality and nature of learning discourses in the development of expertise. |
| Keywords | Expertise Professional development |
| Appendices | |
| Authors | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Surname | Institution | Country | EARLI Number | Presenting | |
| Eero | Ropo | University of Tampere | Finland | eero.ropo@uta.fi | * | |
| Anna-Maija | Gustafsson | University of Tampere | Finland | anna-maija.gustafsson@uta.fi | ||
