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Organizing professional communities of practice
Ropes, D.C.
Publication date
2010
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Ropes, D. C. (2010). Organizing professional communities of practice. University of
Amsterdam, Department of Child Development and Education.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction 1 1.1 Context 4 1.2 Goals 8 1.3 Research Questions 91.4 Scientific and Societal Relevance 11
1.5 Research Approach 11
1.6 Structure of the Dissertation 13
2 Designing effective CoPs 15
2.1 Understanding CoPs 15
2.2 Designing CoPs and their implementation 23 2.3 Organizing CoPs: developing the system 37
2.4 Evaluation 48
3 Design and instrumentation 51
3.1 OL and Knowledge Building: the role of CoPs 51 3.2 CoPs and learning: perspectives, processes and outcomes 53
3.3 Hypotheses 60
3.4 Research design 61
3.5 Instrumentation 62
3.6 Evaluation of process 69
3.7 Reliability and validity: Plausible rival explanations 72
4 Empirically testing the CoPOS 79
4.1 Educational Advisors, Inc. (EAI CoP) 79 4.2 The Social Communication Knowledge Team (SKT) 94
ix 4.4 Labor Advisors Community (LA CoP) 119 4.5 Teacher Development Community (TD CoP) 136
4.6 Thesis Mentor Community (TM CoP) 150
4.7 Aggregate data analysis 165
4.8 Cross-case analysis 179
5 Conclusions 193
6 Discussion 197
6.1 The value of CoPs to organizations 197 6.2 The value of CoPs to the individual 200
6.3 The value of the CoPOS 201
6.4 Critical reflection on transferability 204 6.5 Observed outcomes and the power of the data 205 6.6 Contributions to knowledge surrounding CoPs and HRD 206
6.7 Paths for future research 207
Summary 209
Samenvatting 219
References 229