Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
A research design to understand the transformation of students in higher professional education
Griffioen, Didi; Day, Indira; Nak, Jason
Publication date 2019
Document Version Final published version
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Griffioen, D., Day, I., & Nak, J. (2019). A research design to understand the transformation of students in higher professional education. Poster session presented at Higher Education Conference 2019, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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Download date:26 Nov 2021
HIGHER EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
CREATING TOMORROW
A Research Design to understand the Transformation of Students in Higher Professional Education
Didi Griffioen, Indira Day, & Jason nak
Introduction
Students in higher education are being prepared for professional practice.
In order to later be able to become a professional, students interact with different types of professional knowledge and action in their education programmes. Presumably, these interactions facilitate the transformation from student to professional, yet alone they are not enough. In a university setting, Ashwin, Abbas, & McClean (2014) showed that additionally, students needed to be aware of the need to and willing to transform in order to be successful in this regard.
Dutch higher professional education, however, has a different role than the university does as it focusses more on professional practice and knowledge than the university does. Therefore we can only guess how the interaction with action and knowledge in these institutions facilitate students’
transformation, as well as whether the same prerogatives are in place.
Moreover, different disciplines have different knowledge bases. This could imply that students interact with different knowledge over the course of their programmes. Therefore an additional point of interest would be to investigate students in different disciplines.
This study aims to investigate how students in higher professional education transform as a result of interactions with knowledge and action.
We investigate this transformation on three aspects of the professional:
Identity, knowledge and action.
More information: j.nak@hva.nl
www.hva.nl/heri
Research Questions
1. What forms of knowledge do undergraduate students have access to through their curricula?
2. How are students’ identities transformed by engaging with this knowledge?
3. How are students’ problem solving strategies in professional tasks transformed by engaging with this knowledge?
4. What are the disciplinary differences in these processes and outcomes?
Data gathering
100 students divided over 4 different programmes are included to represent different knowledge bases, based on Biglan, 1973.
All participants:
• Are interviewed annually in order to assess their professional identity
• Perform three ill-structured problem solving tasks (Jonassen, 2010) from within their discipline in order to assess their professional knowledge
• Annually provide us with a sample of their work from the last year to assess their professional action
All students in the cohort fill out a questionnaire at the start and end of their programme to assess generalizability.
Identity
Action Knowledge
Professionalism
End year 2 (T2)
• Interview
• Written work
• Problem solving task
End year 1 (T1)
• Interview
• Written work
Start year 1 (T0)
• Interview
• Problem solving task
End year 3 (T3)
• Interview
• Written work
End year 4 (T4)
• Interview
• Final project
• Problem solving task
Life
Hard
Physical Therapy
(PT) Social Work (SW)
Soft
Aviation (AV) Creative Business (CB)
Non-life
References
Ashwin, P., Abbas, A., & McLean, M. (2014). How do students’
accounts of sociology change over the course of their undergraduate degrees? Higher Education, 67(2), 219-234.
Biglan, A. (1973). The characteristics of subject matter. Journal of applied Psychology, 57(3), 195-203.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (2010). Predicting and changing behavior: The reasoned action approach. Psychology press.
Jonassen, D. H. (2010). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments. Routledge.
Data Analysis
Data reduction will be based on an
adapted version of Fishbein and Ajzen’s (2010) Theory of Reasoned Action. The data gathered in the different instances will be coded accordingly.
PERCEPTION & CONTROL INTENTION TO BEHAVIOR
PERCEPTION & CONTROL KNOWLEDGE & IDENTITY
CONTEXT
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY Who do I want to
be(come)?
PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE What do I know?
PERSONAL CONTEXT What is my situation / life story?
PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT
What profession relates to my educational track?
ATTITUDE TO BEHAVIOR What do I consider
important?
SUBJECTIVE NORMS
What do others believe a professional ought to be?
NORMATIVE BELIEFS What do I think a
professional ought to be?
SELF-EFFICACY
What do I consider to be my ability?
BEHAVIOR CONTROL What am I able to influence/pull off (external factors)?
INTENTION TO BEHAVIOR
What would I prefer to
do (problem definition)? BEHAVIOR
The actions I actually take (problem solving)?
EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS
What do I believe to be true?
OUTCOME EXPECTANCY What do I expect the outcome of my intended behavior to be?
Questionnaire (T0) Questionnaire (T4)
