Explicating development of personal professional theories from higher vocational education to beginning a professional career through computer-supported drawing of concept maps

This article explores how personal professional theories (PPTs) develop. PPT development of nine junior accountants and nine novice teachers was monitored by repeated measurements over a period of 1.5 years, from the last year of vocational education until the second year of their professional careers. Computer-supported construction of PPT concept maps was used at three moments to test hypotheses derived from theories on expertise development. It could be concluded that on average PPTs became more complex. The PPTs of teachers also became richer, but the generality of PPTs did not significantly increase. Appearance and disappearance of concepts and changes in their importance were observed and appeared dependent on the professional environment of the participants. The findings indicate that: PPT development is an important manifestation of expertise development which could be used to support the professional development of students and beginning workers; and the concept map method can be used to reveal this development

Combining concept maps and interviews to produce representations of personal professional theories in higher vocational education: effects of order and vocational domain

This article is about the use of personal professional theories (PPTs) in Dutch higher vocational education. PPTs are internalised bodies of formal and practical knowledge and convictions, professionals use to direct their behaviour. With the aid of high-quality representations of students’ PPTs teachers can access, monitor, and support the professional development of students. Two qualitatively equivalent techniques for representing PPTs are (computer-supported) concept mapping and interviewing. This article reports on a study of the effects of combining these techniques to determine whether (1) this results in higher quality representations and (2), if so, whether technique order will make a difference. The study was conducted in two very different vocational domains: accountancy with 29 participants and teacher education with 20 participants. The results of a counterbalanced quasi-experiment with two factors (i.e. domain and order) show in both domains that combining the techniques improves quality but order does not matter. This order independence has practical importance as the computer-supported analysis of a student generated concept map and subsequently discussing the results with the student, fosters learning and fits in educational practice well

Assessment of Personal Professional Theories

Vocational education lays the foundations of PPTs, which continue to take shapeduring practitioners’ professional careers, often in interaction with CPTs. Knowledge of PPTs is important in vocational education because PPTs reflect how students have internalisedand integrated what they have learned in school and in practice during internships.If the main features of student’s PPTs could be made visible, they could provideteachers with information on the student’s knowledge of and views on the professionthey are learning. As important aspects such as its priorities, awareness of professionalissues, cohesion and the connection between experience and theory becomeexplicit, teachers could advise students regarding their development. This means thatteachers could use students’ PPTs for formative assessments of student development.Such assessments could also help them to personalise their teaching by better designingfuture learning experiences. An example is teacher education, where it is important thatstudent teachers realise that their content knowledge, the pedagogies they employ, andthe ways they manage their classrooms, must be aimed at effective child development.If knowing that, in a student’s PPT, child development is only weakly connected withsuch items, this could give rise to the teacher organising a traineeship (i.e., a studentteacherexperience) which is more focused on child development

Assessment of Personal Professional Theories

Vocational education lays the foundations of PPTs, which continue to take shape during practitioners’ professional careers, often in interaction with CPTs. Knowledge of PPTs is important in vocational education because PPTs reflect how students have internalised and integrated what they have learned in school and in practice during internships. If the main features of student’s PPTs could be made visible, they could provide teachers with information on the student’s knowledge of and views on the profession they are learning. As important aspects such as its priorities, awareness of professional issues, cohesion and the connection between experience and theory become explicit, teachers could advise students regarding their development. This means that teachers could use students’ PPTs for formative assessments of student development. Such assessments could also help them to personalise their teaching by better designing future learning experiences. An example is teacher education, where it is important that student teachers realise that their content knowledge, the pedagogies they employ, and the ways they manage their classrooms, must be aimed at effective child development. If knowing that, in a student’s PPT, child development is only weakly connected with such items, this could give rise to the teacher organising a traineeship (i.e., a studentteacher experience) which is more focused on child development

A computer-supported method to reveal and assess Personal Professional Theories in vocational education

This article introduces a dedicated, computer-supported method to construct and formatively assess open, annotated concept maps of Personal Professional Theories (PPTs). These theories are internalised, personal bodies of formal and practical knowledge, values, norms and convictions that professionals use as a reference to interpret and acquire knowledge, and to direct their behaviour, and which vocational students are expected to develop. Monitoring the development of PPTs and assessing their quality are difficult as they are, essentially, mental schemes. Traditional methods, such as semi-structured interviews and concept mapping, are either too labour-intensive to be used in an educational setting or are not able to reveal their full quality. The study presents a new method which is valid, reliable and easy to use in education and which reveals the quality in a way that is comparable to or better than interviews