Study Circles and Reflective Thought about Professional Identity Growth in Higher Education

Author(s):

Claudio Melacarne(presenting / submitting)Valentina Mucciarelli Loretta Fabbri

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 02 B, CPD for Higher Education Professionals

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-13

15:15-16:45

Room:

JK 31/239,1 FL., 25

Chair:

Ana Ines Renta Davids

Contribution

In the last 30 years, higher education systems have been called, other than to fulfil research and teaching functions, to support students’ representation of their professional future, e.g. through educational settings where students can reflect about their future as workers and define their identity as professionals (Modernising universities for Europe's competitiveness in a global knowledge economy Council Resolution, November 2007).

However, in the Italian higher education system, faculties hold different job cultures and only a few of them can rely on a well-established tradition of organizational practices to support students developing their professional identity. For example, by tradition, the Faculty of Liberal Arts and the Faculty of Philosophy do not have a consolidated experience in promoting students’ tutoring and placement activities, as their curricula have never been shaped by the need to develop specific professional figures.

In this paper, we will describe an educational experience that involved 3 groups of students (15 students for each group) in a reflective setting managed through a Study Circles Method (Bjerkaker & Summers, 2006). The Study Circle was developed by Olsson who also described their distinctive features. Among them, those that are relevant in our research context are:

• subjects are studied in small groups;

• teachers are not a necessary prerequisite of study. The leader of the group is an organizer and he or she possesses no theoretical qualifications;

• subjects supplement their group studies by attending lectures or meetings;

• circle members have no previous theoretical qualifications, but a good deal of

practical experience;

• the knowledge they acquire can be directly related to their everyday lives.

The project has been carried out at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of Arezzo, of the University of Siena. The construction process of one’s professional identity has been interpreted as a heuristic-reflective process.

The primary aim was to study the university organizational conditions that make it possible for higher education students to lay a foundation to think critically about their professional future, taking part in a reflective community (Mezirow, 1991; Wenger, 1998).

Our general research question was: how the higher education system can support the professional identity growth?

Our specific research question was: can the Study Circle method sustain the professional identity growth in a Faculty where the job culture is weak?

Method

The Study Circle was first developed as a method for adult education in the Nordic European countries. It was promoted as a democratic and emancipatory method to facilitate learning in informal contexts (Eriksson & Holmer, 1992). Nowadays, the Study Circle method is used in many contexts (e.g. in workplaces) and is considered as a best practice to promote learning processes, as it builds upon strong personal professional needs (Oliver, 1992). Therefore, we can test the Study Circle method in the higher educational context (Richmond, 2000), as a possibility to help students to face the educational and professional transition. Our hypothesis is that the professional identity is the result of a reflective process on the personal growth process and on the social context. The analysis was developed within a qualitative framework. In particular, the study involved 45 students enrolled at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the Universities of Siena, and was focused on the analysis of: - the students’ professional representations (narratives issued from these setting have been analyzed with T-lab) (Lancia, 2003); - the situated conditions to promote a more efficient placement and tutoring service (narratives issued from these setting have been analyzed with T-lab); - the Study Circle Method as a way to promote critical reflective thoughts about university students’ professional future.

Expected Outcomes

It expected that the students’ representations are focused on ideal types of professions and cannot prefigure the organizational dimensions of work. For example, they think the work is an individual activity based on specialistic skills only. Further, the situated conditions which promote a more efficient placement and tutoring service should be connected with: job university culture, the economical structures of the city and local community, the possibility to share best practices among Faculties belonging to the same or other Universities. Finally, the Study Circle method can be used effectively in the university framework if we change some management rules, for example supporting free access to the group and the use of tecnology to promote the learning process.

References

Bjerkaker, S. & Summers, J. (2006). Learning democratically: using study circles. Leicester: NIACE. Eriksson, K. & Holmer, J. (1992). Study circles as a support for changes in work- ing life. Halmstad: Högskolan. Lancia, F. (2003). TLAB—Tools for text analysis. By T-LAB. Software. Mezirow J., (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Modernising universities for Europe's competitiveness in a global knowledge economy Council Resolution (November 2007). http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc1124_en.htm. Oliver, L. P. (1992). Study Circles: Individual Growth through Collaborative Learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. 53 (53), 85– 97. Report on the Council Resolution of 23 November 2007 on Modernising Universities for Europe's competitiveness in a global knowledge economy Report from the Commission to the Council (October 2008). http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc1124_en.htm. Richmond, R. E. (2000). Study Circles: Adult Education for the People. Journal of Adult Education. Mountain Plains Adult Education Association, 28, 35–43. Schön D.A (1987)., Educative the reflective practitioner. Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Wenger E. (1998), Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge Mass: Cambridge University Press.

Author Information

Claudio Melacarne (presenting / submitting)

University of Siena

Department of Education

Arezzo

Valentina Mucciarelli

University of Siena, Italy

Loretta Fabbri