Andreas Gegenfurtner is a researcher on adult education and training at the Deggendorf Institute of Technology and professor of psychology with an emphasis on teaching and learning with digital media at the University of Passau. His primary research interests are digital learning, motivation and emotion, and professional development. In his recent work, he studied the visual expertise of teachers and physicians using eye tracking and the effectiveness of technology-mediated learning environments in higher education and professional training using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method analyses. He serves as editor for the journal Frontline Learning Research and as associate editor for Human Resource Development Quarterly.
Expertise and Professional Learning: Connecting Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives
Expertise in a professional domain is associated with reproducibly superior performance in workplace tasks. For several decades, research on expertise has aimed to understand the processes underlying expert performance, using a range of different methodological approaches including, but not limited to, neurosciences, eye tracking, verbal analysis, and ethnographies. This keynote presentation will discuss if and how different methodologies can be connected to afford a more comprehensive understanding of expertise and professional learning. A particular focus will be on the expertise development of clinicians in medicine, athletes in sports, and teachers in schools, and how the findings derived from diverse methodologies can inspire the education and training of novices.