Problems with Placement?

1
Problems with Placement?

• An exploration of the relationship between
  identity and learning in respect of Professional
  Placement for full-time Quantity Surveying
  students
• Dr Irene Bonnar BEECON September 2007

2
Part 1 The Research Context and Theoretical
Framings

• Research study centred around the concepts of
• belonging and becoming
• in professional vocational education,
  specifically the place of professional placement
  in same

3
Approach Adopted

• Case Study involving
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Focus group interviews
• Questionnaires
• Reflective journals
• Feedback interviews

4
Theoretical Framing 1

• Wengers Theory of Learning as a Community of
  Practice (1998) knowledge is a matter of
  participation and being part of a discourse
  community learning is not just an accumulation
  of skills and information but a process of
  becoming a particular person by acquiring those
  skills and knowledge in the service of an
  identity.

5
Supplemented by

• Nespors (1994) theories of actor-networks, the
  cycles of accumulation within these networks and
  the flows of people through space and time
  students enter the discipline and its practices
  when they begin to construct worlds through
  discipline-based systems of representation.

6
Context for and Participants in the Research

• Context
• 4 year BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying degree
  programme
• Professional Placement at Level 2 / Level 3
• Student/Employer negotiated employment
• Participants
• Level 3 Full-time Quantity Surveying students
• Total population 22 students
• Male (18) and Female (4)

7
Purpose of Professional Placement

• Attempts to offer actual rather than simulated
  practice (Argyris and Schon, 1974)
• Provides students with a work-based learning
  experience
• Allows students to draw on and develop their
  knowledge and practice and further develop their
  professional and personal skills

8
The PLUSES

• Engagement in the field provides an insight into
  the nature of work in the real world
• It serves to confirm or modify career aspirations
• Students may attack their coursework with new
  energy on their return to study

9
The Minuses

• The meaning of placement may be unclear in an
  educational sense
• Students may learn about their own incompetencies
  or find that work is harder than they thought,
  and so they fail
• Students may be less responsive to coursework or
  express frustration if placement has not taught
  them what they need to know

10
Transition from HE to Work

• Placement allows students to act as mediators,
  bringing new insights from work experience into
  university and vice versa
• (Tuomi-Grohn et al, 2003, Konkola, 2001)

11
Problems of Transition from study to work

• Performance in the workplace involves integration
  of several different forms of knowledge and skill
• Different knowledge culture from HE including
  kinds of knowledge acquired and used
• Modern workplaces extremely diverse in demands
  they make regarding learning and knowledge
• Learning opportunities are not equally
  distributed across workplaces

12
Influences on Learning in Placement

• Characteristics of the workplace
• Person variables
• Characteristics of the curriculum and teaching
  practices
• Personal relations
• (Van der Savolen and Teurlings, 2003)
• Can both be negative

13
Cultural Identity

• Organisations influence their employees in
  respect of
• The meaning of employment
• The relationship employees have with the
  organisation
• The distinct ways in which work is represented
  within the organisation
• (Hall and Du Gay, 1997)

14
Informal Learning in the Workplace (Eraut, 2004)

• Social significance of learning from other people
• Emotional dimension of professional work
• Relationships play a critical role in workplace
  learning
• which influence
• the belonging and becoming

15
Success in learning in the workplace

• Depends on
• The quality of the relationships in the workplace
• The amount of learning which takes place in the
  workplace
• (NBvaries signficantly with the person and the
  context)

16
Part 2 Research Findings and Conclusions

• Emerging Issues
• Belonging influenced by
• Engagement with colleagues in the workplace
• Opportunities for engagement with the discipline
• Becoming influenced by
• The role of colleagues
• The nature of tasks allocated
• Respondents perceptions of self during placement
  period

17
Transition and Orientation

• Proved difficult for some
• Transfer from project to project made belonging
  more difficult frequent need to forge new
  relationships with colleagues
• Emotional dimension to relationships within
  workplace
• Belonging was not simply entry to community but
  also the terms of such acceptance eg to be
  treated as other colleagues, to be appreciated
  and respected, and not be viewed as student

18
Contrast in Experiences

• Level of support provided by colleagues
• feel intimidated and shy
• Appointed a buddy
• could ask silly questions without feeling
  stupid

19
Workload and Task Allocation

• Amount of downtime idle time
• Apparent busyness of colleagues and
• Reluctance to interrupt
• feel awkward about asking if there was anything
  for me to do
• persistently asking for things to do but feel I
  am constantly annoying them by asking

20
The Pluses for Participants

• Getting to know people in the industry
  (belonging)
• Able to practice skills and use knowledge from
  university on real projects (becoming)
• Getting a taste of what it is like to work as a
  QS (belonging and becoming)

21
The Minuses for the Participants

• Expected to undertake tasks without sufficient
  guidance and support from colleagues
• Issues of (self) confidence afraid to ask for
  assistance in case it reflected badly or looked
  stupid
• Working hours
• Nature of tasks degree of repetition
• level of admin
• low level

22
Conclusions

• Marked contrast between positive and negative
  placement experiences
• Characteristics of the workplace were
  significant, particularly relationships with
  others and tasks allocated
• Difficulties in making connection to the
  community tensions between being an outsider and
  becoming an insider not fitting in

23
Resulting in an Impact on

• Participants
• Sense of identity as a QS (belonging)
• Future career aspirations (becoming)
• Not belonging with limited opportunities for
  becoming

24
Issues for

• Programme, School and Employers engaged with
  professional placement opportunities
• Wider community
• How representative is this of the QS discipline?
  (School / other institutions)
• Are these experiences peculiar to the QS
  discipline/programme or are they shared by other
  disciplines? (School / other institutions)
• What of belonging and becoming for those who
  do not have the opportunity for placement?

25
List of References

• Argyris C and Schon D A (1974) Theory and
  Practice Increasing Professional Effectiveness
  San Francisco Josey-Bass
• Eraut M (2004) Informal Learning in the
  Workplace Studies in Continuing Education 26
  (2) pp247-273
• Hall S and Du Gay P (1997) Questions of Cultural
  Identity London Sage
• Konkola R (2001) Developmental Processes of
  internship polytechnic and boundary-zone activity
  as a new model for activity in Tuomi-Grohn T and
  Engestrom Y (eds) (2003) At the boundary-zone
  between school and work new possibilities of
  work-based learning Helsinki University Press

26
List of References (contd)

• Nespor J (1994) Knowledge in Motion Space Time
  and Curriculum in undergraduate physics and
  management London The Falmer Press
• Tuomi-Grohn and Engestrom Y (eds) (2003) Between
  School and Work New Perspectives on Transfer and
  Boundary Crossing Advances in Learning and
  Instruction Series, London Pergamon/Earli
• Van der Savolen J and Teurlings C (2003)
  Developing Competence During Practice Periods
  The Learners Perspective in Tuomi-Grohn and
  Engestrom Y (eds) (2003) Between School and
  Work New Perspectives on Transfer and Boundary
  Crossing Advances in Learning and Instruction
  Series, London Pergamon/Earli
• Wenger E (1998) Communities of Practice
  Learning, Meaning and Identity Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press

27
Contact Details

• Dr Irene Bonnar
• School of The Built and Natural Environment,
  Glasgow Caledonian University
• Telephone [phone]
• e-mail ibo_at_gcal.ac.uk