Professional Identity and the Further Education and Training Practitioner - exploring identities using a grounded theory approach

Author(s):

Sarah Bates Evoy(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES E 06, Identity and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-22

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-E1.19

Chair:

George Head

Contribution

The Irish Further Education and Training (FET) Sector, as a distinct and official sector of the national education system, came into being in 2013, as a result of the amalgamation of a range of different education and training bodies, institutions and organisations providing programmes, courses and learning opportunities to individuals over the age of 16. Irish FET includes accredited and non-accredited education and training which can take place in both formal and informal learning contexts. Accredited FET programmes lead to awards between Level 1 and 6 on the Irish National Framework of Qualifications (which is linked to the European Qualifications Framework) and are not part of the mainstream Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education Sectors. Equivalent sectors and activities exist in various other countries, but may be described by different terms including Vocational, Technical, and Continuing Education and Training.

In order to deal with the amalgamation of numerous and diverse parts into one overall FET sector, a number of significant policy and structural changes were implemented. These changes included: the creation of the Further Education & Training Authority SOLAS, which was given a remit to create an identifiable, structured and professional Irish FET Sector; the re-naming and re-structuring of the key national providers of FET, which involved the merging of 33 Vocational Educational Committees to form 16 Education and Training Boards; the establishment of an updated common awards system; and the establishment of Quality and Qualifications Ireland, which was given the responsibility for the external quality assurance of further and higher education and training.

The newly amalgamated Irish FET sector has brought together numerous and diverse learning and teaching environments and contexts, all of which had developed separately and somewhat organically over a long period. The FET practitioners who work within the sector are equally diverse in terms of their own education, training, professional qualifications, career goals, values and beliefs about learning and teaching, and workplace contexts and ethoses. This has led to much confusion about what FET is and about what constitutes a professional FET practitioner.

The scenarios currently playing out in the Irish context are not unique in the international context and the complexity of Irish FET mirrors that found in comparable sectors internationally, including those in the UK, Finland and Australia. However research on practitioner identities within these complex contexts remains relatively limited: to date (January 2016) there is no published research available on Irish FET practitioners’ identities and much of the limited international research on FET practitioner identities is based on trainee practitioners rather than on more established professionals.

This paper will report on a research project designed to address the gap that has been identified in the research literature with respect to Irish FET. Entitled ‘Further Education and Training Practitioners in Transition – the impact of change on practitioner identities in the Irish FET sector’, this PhD research project aims to examine the professional identities formed by practitioners (teachers, tutors, trainers, facilitators, lecturers etc.) in the Irish FET sector and to consider the impact of recent significant changes to the sector upon those identities. The aims will be achieved through a 4 stage research process to be carried out using a grounded theory approach.

Method

A four stage research design is being implemented in the project, and two of the three data collection stages have already been completed at the time of writing. The first stage involved a scoping event utilising Open Space Technology principles. The second stage expanded on the initial scoping event, and was a context building exercise utilising an online questionnaire. The third stage will involve a more in-depth examination of individual FET practitioners’ identities through the use of narrative interviews. In the final stage, the research findings will be presented to focus groups of Irish FET practitioners for review. All stages of the process are underpinned by a grounded theory approach. Grounded theory gives permission to researchers to research areas of interest, without first identifying and committing to defined and developed theoretical frameworks, and it removes the restriction, and potential colouring influence, that can come from having pre-established expectations of what might be found in the data. Grounded theory gives preference to the data and the area of interest being researched, rather than pre-established theoretical assumptions. (Corbin & Strauss, 2015; Flick, 2002). In the case of the current project, a grounded theory approach was chosen for the study as it was felt that such an approach would allow the research and the findings to be firmly rooted in the opinions, experiences and perspectives of Irish FET practitioners themselves. Research utilising grounded theory is often a circular process, as the analysis of the data from one stage of the research project informs the next stage of the research project. (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) This circularity is evident in the research project presented here through the impact of the findings from the scoping event (stage 1) on the following on-line questionnaire (stage 2), and the impact of the findings from both stages 1 and 2 on the third stage, which is currently under way. The research methods employed for this research project, in particular the use of Open Space Technology and of narrative interviews, are in keeping with grounded theory principles, which advocate for low interference data collection instruments and research techniques. (Hatch, 2002). In setting the current project against the backdrop of existing academic research in the field, reference will be made to research which employed a grounded theory approach, or aspects of grounded theory, to examine teacher identity in various contexts.

Expected Outcomes

This paper will report on the findings of the first two stages of the research project as well as on the research process itself. The first section of the paper will give a brief introduction to Open Space Technology, and report on the researcher’s experience of using Open Space Technology principles (Owen, 2008), as a means of consulting with a diverse research group. A summary of the data obtained through the scoping event (stage 1) which addressed the question, ‘Who are Further Education and Training practitioners?’ with 15 diverse FET practitioners, will also be presented. The second section of the paper will give an overview of the process of using an online questionnaire (Survey Monkey), which aimed to check and expand upon particular areas of interest featured in the findings from Stage 1. A summary of the data from the 167 online questionnaire respondents will also be presented. Key issues which have emerged from the research to date will be presented and discussed. These include issues and factors relating to the structure of the Irish FET sector, to professionalisation and registration, and macro and micro level policies. The findings to date indicate that high levels of diversity currently exist within the Irish FET practitioner population, and that there is significant confusion among practitioners about where their sector, and they themselves as professionals, are going. The next stage of the research will further investigate these issues, with a view to ultimately presenting a picture of who Irish FET practitioners are from their own perspectives, thus creating knowledge in a research area yet to be explored and allowing for the issues faced and the identities formed in the Irish context to be compared to those found in the broader international context.

References

Anderson, F. (2012) The Construction of Professionalism in Vocational Education and Training in Ireland: A mixed methods study of trainers’ roles and professional development in the workplace. [Internet resource] http://doras.dcu.ie/16784/1/F_Anderson_thesis.pdf (Accessed 19.4.15) Burns, E. & Bell, S. (2011) ‘Narrative construction of professional teacher identity of teachers with dyslexia’, in Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 27, P.952 – 960. Connelly, M.F. & Clandinin, J.D. (2000) Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers. Corbin, J. & Strauss, A. (2015) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 4th Edition. UK: Sage. Elliott, J. (2005) Using Narrative in Social Research. London: Sage. Flick, U. (2002) An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition. London: Sage. Glaser, B.G. & Strauss, A.L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Hatch, J. A. (2002) Doing Qualitative Research in Education Settings. USA: State University of New York Press. McGuinness, S., Bergin, A., Kelly, E., McCoy, S., Smyth, E., Whelan, A. & Banks, J. (2014) Further Education and Training in Ireland: Past, Present and Future. Dublin: The Economic and Social Research Institute. [Internet Resource] https://www.esri.ie/UserFiles/publications/RS35.pdf (Accessed 16.2.15) Murray, M., Grummell, B., & Ryan, A. (eds) Further Education & Training: History, Politics, Practice. Maynooth: MACE Press. Owen, H. (2008) Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, 3rd Ed. California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. Robson, J. (2006) ‘A profession in crisis: status, culture and identity in further education college’, in the Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 50:4. P.585 – 607. SOLAS (2014) Further Education and Training Strategy, 2014 – 2019. Dublin: Department of Education and Skills. Thi Tran, L. & Nhai Thi Nguyen. (2014) ‘Teachers’ negotiation of professional identities in the ‘contact zone’’, in Arber, R., Blackmore, J. & Vongalis-Macrow, A. (eds) Mobile Teachers, Teacher Identity and International Schooling. Routledge Research in Education. P.43-61. [Internet Resource] books.google.ie (Accessed 19.4.15) Tyler, M.A. (2013) ‘A Tango in VET – Whose notion of TAFE teacher leads?’, in Midgley, W., Tyler, M.A., Danaher, P.A. & Mander, A. (eds) Beyond Binarie in Education Research. Routledge Research in Education. P.83-99. [Internet Resource] books.google.ie (Accessed 19.4.15) Vahasantanen, K. (2015) ‘Professional agency in the stream of change: Understanding educational change and teachers’ professional identities’, in Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol.47, P.1-12.

Author Information

Sarah Bates Evoy (presenting / submitting)

Waterford Institute of Technology

Lifelong Learning and Education

Co. Wexford.

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