The development of expertise in information systems design

Miten käsitteellistää ammatillista toimijuutta työssä?

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan, miten toimijuus on ymmärretty monitieteisessä keskustelussa. Lisäksi pohditaan, miten ammatillista toimijuutta työssä tulisi käsitteellistää. peerReviewed

Ikääntyneet aikuiset kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puheessa : työn kohteesta osallistuvaksi aikuiseksi?

Artikkelissa kuvataan kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puhetta ikääntyneistä aikuisista ryhmämuotoisessa kuntoutuksessa. Aineisto koostuu kuudesta kuntoutustyöntekijöiden moniammatillisesta fokusryhmäkeskustelusta, jotka toteutettiin kuudessa kuntoutuslaitoksessa. Aineisto analysoitiin diskurssianalyysiä hyödyntäen. Kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puheesta tunnistettiin viisi puhetapaa, joista arviointipuhe liittyi sosiaali- ja terveysalan (sote) kontekstiin, ohjaus- ja riskipuhe asiakkaiden oppimisen ja muutoksen kontekstiin sekä toiseus- ja oivalluspuhe työntekijöiden asiantuntijuuteen. Kuntoutuksessa tavoitellusta asiakaslähtöisyyden periaatteesta huolimatta työntekijöiden arviointi-, ohjaus- ja riskipuh…

Identity and Agency in Professional Learning

This chapter elaborates professional learning from two complementary perspectives, namely professional identity and agency. Starting with the conceptualization of identity and agency, the chapter illustrates how professional identity and agency are intertwined with workplace learning at the individual and social levels. In theoretical terms we adhere to a subject-centred socio-cultural approach. This implies that professional learning is seen as a dual process, involving identity negotiation and the development of work practices (including the practice of agency), with both aspects taking place within the socio-cultural and material conditions of the workplace. We see professional identity …

Constraints and challenges on learning and construction of identitites at work

This paper analyses and discusses different constraints on workplace learning, vocational development and formation of identity. We ask how the learning and development of vocational identities are related to the various learning constraints and restrictions present in the socio-cultural contexts of the workplace. The study utilizes 20 interviews of industrial designers and nursing staff in Finland. The data on the vocational students was collected with Internet questionnaires (N = 1125) from these two fields; technology and transport, and social services and health care. The results indicated that constraints on learning and professional/vocational identity development at work were mainly …

Seeking New Perspectives on the Development of Teacher Education – A Study of the Finnish Context

Studies show that changes in teacher education around the world occur slowly and are difficult to implement. This study aims to contribute to the discussion on the major resources for and obstacles to developing teacher education and finding novel solutions to overcome the obstacles. Resources and obstacles were investigated in the context of academic and university-based teacher education in Finland. Findings revealed three major challenges: (a) obstacles in renegotiating professional identity, (b) internal competition between subject-matter groups within the department, and (c) discrepancies between individual agency and organizational development. Based on the findings, this study argues…

Emotions in leaders’ enactment of professional agency

Purpose Although there has been an increase in workplace studies on professional agency, few of these have examined the role of emotions in the enactment of agency at work. To date, professional agency has been mainly conceptualised as a goal-oriented, rational activity aimed at influencing a current state of affairs. Challenged by this, this study aims to elaborate the nature and quality of emotions and how they might be connected to the enactment of professional agency. Design/methodology/approach Data are collected in the context of a leadership coaching programme that aimed to promote the leaders’ professional agency over the course of a year. The participants (11 middle-management lea…

Professional learning and agency in an identity coaching programme

This article addresses the professional learning that occurred in an identity coaching programme. The arts-based programme aimed to enhance the participants’ professional learning, notably through helping them to process their professional identities. Professional learning was seen as resourced by the participants’ professional agency, and by the promotion of such agency. Through interviews, we investigated what the participants perceived they had learnt during the programme, and the potential differences in learning outcomes between professional groups from university and hospital contexts. The findings showed that the programme was perceived as a rich learning arena in the domains of the …

Ammatillinen toimijuus : rakenne, mittari ja tuki

Vocational teachers in the face of a major educational reform: individual ways of negotiating professional identities

This paper examines how vocational teachers negotiate their professional identity in the context of a major externally imposed curriculum reform. The focus is on the teachers’ orientations towards the reform in its initial stage. Sixteen Finnish vocational teachers were interviewed using open‐ended narrative interviews. The data were analysed in accordance with data‐driven qualitative analysis methods. From the teachers’ accounts, three main orientations towards the reform were identified: a resistant orientation, an inconsistent orientation and an approving orientation, each based on the teachers’ individual self‐positioning towards the reform. Each orientation is illustrated using two nar…

Surgical learning and guidance on operative risks and potential errors

Purpose Within the framework of learning from errors, this study focused on how operative risks and potential errors are addressed in guidance to surgical residents during authentic surgical operations. The purpose of this paper is to improve patient safety and to diminish medical complications resulting from possible operating errors. Further in the process of the optimal contexts for instruction aimed at preventing risks and errors in the practical hospital environment was evaluated. Design/methodology/approach The five authentic surgical operations were analyzed, all of which were organized as training sessions for surgical residents. The data (collected via video-recoding) were analyze…

A multi-componential methodology for exploring emotions in learning

Studies on emotions in learning are often based on interviews conducted after the learning. Therefore, these do not capture the multi-componential nature of emotions and how emotions are related to the process of learning. We see emotions as dimensional and multi-componential responses to a personally meaningful events and situation. In this methodologically frontline study we developed a multi-componential methodology, which provides complementary information about emotions during learning. In this study, by using a within subject design of one person, we focused on emotions during the professional identity learning. In a laboratory setting, the subject was shown personally meaningful vide…

Students’ self-reported learning outcomes after a business start-up education program

The aim of the present study is to examine the breadth of influence of a business plan-based entrepreneurship education. This task is implemented by examining students’ (n = 227) self-reported learning outcomes concerning entrepreneurial skills, attitudes and abilities after education. In addition to proposing a classification of the self-reported learning outcomes, this study explores how these outcomes are related to the background characteristics of those taking part in an education program, and of the companies involved. Based on this study, four main areas of self-reported learning outcomes were found: (i) working-life key skills, (ii) management skills, (iii) entrepreneurial empowerme…

Recent tensions and challenges in teacher education as manifested in curriculum discourse

Abstract This study seeks to contribute to discussions on the development of teacher education by analysing teacher educators' talk concerning curriculum reform. The curriculum is understood as a mediating construction between teacher educators and the social context, and the development of the curriculum is seen as a negotiation process between global discourses and local actors. Our aim was to understand the contrasting discourses used by teacher educators in talking about curriculum development, on the grounds that such discourses frame interpretations that direct the implementation of teacher education as a whole. Five contrasting interpretative repertoires were found. We illustrate the…

The resources and obstacles of creative collaboration in a long-term learning community

Abstract In the framework of a subject-centred socio-cultural approach, this study investigates creative collaboration and the resources for and obstacles to it in a long-term learning community of ten teacher students. The study focuses on five different learning situations over a 2-year period. The data were taken from teacher students’ evaluations and accounts (on given criteria) of their videotaped group-learning sessions, and their reports of the obstacles to creative collaboration. Using the students’ evaluations of the five videotaped group learning situations, the sessions they assessed as the least and most creative were compared, the aim being to discover the most important situat…

From Individual Cognition to Communities of Practice

Contextual and strategic knowledge in the acquisition of design expertise

Abstract This study examines the acquisition of expertise in designing and developing information systems. The aim was to investigate how practical experience is related to contextual and strategic knowledge in problem-solving. Using a combination of expert–novice comparisons and longitudinal methods, professional systems analysts were compared with novices at the beginning and end of a seven month project-based course. The results show that during the course, the novices acquired a good deal of strategic competence in using domain-specific methods. Compared to the novices, the experts showed a more comprehensive and higher level of awareness of clients' contextual constraints. The study de…

Teachers’ professional identity negotiations in two different work organisations

Recent studies have described professional identity as the interplay between individual agency and social context. However, we need to understand how these are intertwined in different kinds of work settings. This paper focuses on teachers’ professional identity negotiations as involving the work organisation, the professional community and individual agency. The data were gathered from two work organisations representing different management cultures and sources of control over teachers’ work. Open-ended narrative interviews were used, focusing on teachers’ own experiences and perceptions. A data-driven qualitative analysis was applied. Our findings indicated that different work organisati…

Emerging conceptualisations on professional agency and learning

This chapter provides an evaluative summary of the major contributions from the first section of this book, comprising conceptualisations on professional agency and work-related learning. The evaluation focuses on the differences, similarities, and strengths of the approaches and conceptualisations touched on. The focus is, first of all, on how the core meanings of agency and the agentic perspective are understood. Secondly, the approaches are addressed according to their view of how the contextual aspects of working life relate to agency. Thirdly, attention is given to the practical conclusions deriving from different understandings of agency. The present chapter thus elaborates how these …

Challenges for Surgical Residents’ Practice-Based Learning

This chapter explores the practice-based learning of surgical residents. We concentrate on the challenges encountered and experienced by the residents during their clinical practice. In line with Billett (2010), we understand learning through practice as a process that arises through the exercise of occupational activities. For the surgical residents this means that they learn through participating in various kinds of hands-on surgical practices and interactions in clinical wards and units.

Teachers' instructional scaffolding in an innovative information and communication technology-based history learning environment

Abstract The nature of the role assumed by the teacher is crucial in the promotion of successful learning and collaboration in Information and Communication Technologybased (ICT-based) environments. The aim of this study was to examine how teachers with different conceptions of their teacher roles use different types of instructional scaffolding while working in an innovative learning environment. Our further aim was finding out how instructional scaffolding is related to learning activities of different kinds. The study was carried out at two secondary schools with a shared network-based learning environment. The results showed that teachers with different conceptions of the teacher's role…

A multi-componential methodology for exploring emotions in learning : using self-reports, behaviour registration, and physiological indicators as complementary data

Studies on emotions in learning are often based on interviews conducted after the learning. These do not capture the multi-componential nature of emotions, nor how emotions are related to the processes of learning. We see emotions as dimensional, multi-componential responses to personally meaningful events and situations. In this methodologically advanced pilot study we developed a multi-componential methodology, capable of providing complementary information on emotions in professional learning. For this purpose, we used a within-subject design applied to a single individual, with a focus on emotions during professional learning. Within a laboratory setting, the subject was shown personall…

Ammatillisen toimijuuden ja työssä oppimisen vahvistaminen : luovia voimavaroja työhön!

Collaboration and learning in virtual environments

Between school and working life: Vocational teachers’ agency in boundary-crossing settings

Abstract This paper investigates agency among vocational teachers with reference to boundary-crossing between school and working life. Our study utilised interviews with sixteen Finnish vocational teachers. Adopting a narrative analysis approach, we found that the teachers had a variety of forms of exercising agency in terms of decisions deliberately taken, and the discourse and actions following these decisions. These forms were: (i) restricted agency, (ii) extensive agency, (iii) multifaceted balancing agency, (iv) situationally diverse agency, and (v) relationally emergent agency. The exercising of agency was intertwined with the main resources and constraints emerging from the teachers’…

Aikuiskasvatustieteemme on kansainvälisinkin mittarein korkeatasoista

25 vuoden ikään ehtinyt Aikuiskasvatus kysyi kaikilta aikuiskasvatuksen professoreiltamme heidän näkemyksiään neljässä asiassa. Kaikkiin ei tarvinnut vastata. Tällaista kysyttiin ja näin vastasivat Yrjö Engeström ja Reijo Miettinen Helsingin yliopistosta, Anneli Eteläpelto Jyväskylän yliopistosta, Jukka Tuomisto ja Juha Suoranta Tampereen yliopistosta, Risto Rinne Turun yliopistosta, Kari E. Nurmi Lapin yliopistosta sekä vt:nä virkaa hoitava Leena Ahteenmäki-Pelkonen Joensuun yliopistosta. Vastausjärjestys on arvottu. peerReviewed

Agentic perspective on fostering work-related learning

Despite the increased recognition of the role that professional agency plays in work-related learning, little is known about what supports it. Based on current theoretical notions, the first purpose of this paper is to show that professional agency is closely intertwined with work-related learning. The second purpose is to introduce some main principles that promote professional agency and describe three work-related training settings that are aimed at fostering learning by taking into account agentic perspectives. These complementary settings include an identity coaching programme, a leadership coaching programme, and a work conference. Based on the qualitative meta-synthesis, the paper fu…

Professional Agency, Identity, and Emotions While Leaving One’s Work Organization

This study investigated the enactment of professional agency in an emotionally troubled work context emerging from a conflicted relationship between the professional and the work organization. Narrative interviews with Finnish educators were utilized. The findings indicate that the enactment of agency was in part framed by the educators’ rational interpretations of the relationship between themselves and their employer, plus their work history and future prospects. However, it was simultaneously embedded with contradictory emotions, such as a sense of being undervalued, fear, and a sense of empowerment. Within this framework, multifaceted professional agency was enacted particularly via lea…

The Reciprocal Relationship Between Emotions and Agency in the Workplace

In conjunction with a growing interest in professional agency, there is a need to understand how emotions are embedded in agentic practice. This chapter examines the emotions bound up with work and how these emotions are related to professional agency. The subjects of our study were leaders (middle management) and employees working in Finnish education and health-care organisations. A qualitative meta-synthesis was conducted to describe the relationship between professional agency and emotions. The study revealed a variety of emotions, including fear and enjoyment, related to professional identity, work, and social relationships. Among both employees and leaders, emotions were found to play…

The professional agency of teacher educators amid academic discourses

Agency has been seen as fundamental in the renegotiation of professional identities. However, it is unclear how teacher educators exercise their professional agency in their work, and how multiple discourses frame and restrict the practice of their professional agency. This study examines how teacher educators practise agency in negotiating their professional identities amid the multiple discourses emerging from the academic context of their work. The aim was to investigate educators’ locally expressed professional agency in the context of the more global discourses that may construct teacher educator identities. The analysis made use of applied thematic discursive analysis to address patte…

Collective Agency-Promoting Leadership in Finnish Teacher Education

Globally, there is a political and social consensus that teacher education is a key priority for the twenty-first century. However, studies have so far paid little attention to a crucial issue, namely, leadership in teacher education. This chapter contributes to discussion on transforming teacher education practices by focusing on leadership practices in a particular Finnish teacher education department. Adopting a subject-centred sociocultural approach, we elaborate the main challenges, insights, and lessons learned, as perceived by the four leaders of the department, in efforts to move towards more innovative and collaborative practices. We argue that teacher education leaders currently r…

Professional identity among student teachers of physical education : the role of physicality

In this study, we investigate the role of physicality in the professional identities of physical education (PE) student teachers. Twenty PE student teachers participated in semi-structured interviews during their final teaching practice. Data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) and typologies (Patton 2002). The results showed substantial diversity in the student teachers’ conceptions of physicality and the ways these conceptions were embedded in their developing professional identities. The results also brought to light criticism directed at traditional notions of the body and physicality in PE and PE teacher education (PETE). We suggest that conception…

Developing teachers' professional expertise through collaboration in an innovative ICT‐based learning environment

Recent research emphasizes the context‐specific nature of professional knowledge and expertise, implying that developing novel practices in authentic environments is a prerequisite for teachers' professional development. The aim of this study was to find out how teachers develop their practical knowledge and expertise through shared planning and to evaluate an innovative learning project carried out in an ICT‐based environment. Two secondary school teachers of history participated in this study. The data were gathered using a multi‐methodological approach (video recordings, interviews and questionnaires). The results are described in terms of the teachers' shared experiences and their incre…

Vocational teachers’ pathways in the course of a curriculum reform

Teachers face continuous changes, many of which significantly influence their professional identities and work practices. This study investigates Finnish vocational teachers’ pathways in the course of a curriculum reform. The data were obtained by interviewing 14 vocational teachers twice, i.e. at the initial and later stages of the reform. This study used a narrative approach to analyse the interviews as whole and also to illustrate variations between teachers. The teachers were found to exhibit distinctive pathways through the reform: an empowerment pathway, a critical but adaptive pathway, an open and expectant pathway, a successful transformation pathway, and a struggling pathway. The p…

Informal learning contexts in the construction of physical education student teachers’ professional identity

This study aimed to investigate the significance of informal learning contexts in physical education (PE) student teachers’ professional identity construction. It addressed two research questions: How do informal learning contexts contribute to the construction of PE student teachers’ professional identity? What forms of relationships can be identified between the informal and formal contexts of learning in PE student teachers’ professional identity construction? The data consisted of 20 semi-structured interviews with PE student teachers during the final teaching practice period. The data were analysed using structural and pattern coding methods. The analysis revealed that informal learnin…

What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work

Abstract The concept of agency has become widely used in learning research, especially in studies addressing professional and workplace learning, but also in policy discussion on how to promote individually meaningful careers and life-courses amid rapid changes in working life. The purpose of this article is to provide a critical review of the multidisciplinary concept of agency, and to suggest a fruitful conceptualization of professional agency at work. The following questions are addressed: (i) How have the ontological characteristics and manifestations of agency been understood? (ii) How have the relationships between the social and individual aspects of agency been understood? We examin…

Older rehabilitees’ life-course agency in Finnish gerontological rehabilitation

Aims: This study investigates gerontological rehabilitation sessions of Finnish rehabilitees in the framework of life-course agency from the perspectives of temporal orientation and agency. Methods: The research data were obtained by non-participatory observation in 11 individual goal-setting sessions between 11 rehabilitees and their personal counsellors. The data were analysed in accordance with data-driven, qualitative content and narrative analysis, with an emphasis on the life-course agency approach. Results: Four temporal orientations of older rehabilitees were identified in the rehabilitation sessions: (i) timeless, (ii) past, (iii) present, and (iv) life course. For each temporal or…

Students’ accounts of their participation in an intensive long-term learning community

Collaborative learning environments have been analysed extensively, yet we know relatively little about how students experience their participation in long-term learning communities where learners work together over extended periods of time. This study aims to understand pre-service teacher–students’ experiences and accounts of their participation in a university-based long-term learning community. The study investigates issues of change and stability, with respect to the students’ perceptions of participation over the first 2 years of their work within the learning community. The study also addresses the relations between the students’ accounts of participation and their learning experienc…

Mitä mieltä, professorit?

25 vuoden ikään ehtinyt Aikuiskasvatus kysyi kaikilta aikuiskasvatuksen professoreiltamme heidän näkemyksiään neljässä asiassa. Kaikkiin ei tarvinnut vastata. Tällaista kysyttiin ja näin vastasivat Yrjö Engeström ja Reijo Miettinen Helsingin yliopistosta, Anneli Eteläpelto Jyväskylän yliopistosta, Jukka Tuomisto ja Juha Suoranta Tampereen yliopistosta, Risto Rinne Turun yliopistosta, Kari E. Nurmi Lapin yliopistosta sekä vt:nä virkaa hoitava Leena Ahteenmäki-Pelkonen Joensuun yliopistosta. Vastausjärjestys on arvottu.

Collaborative processes during report writing of a science learning project: The nature of discourse as a function of task requirements

The aim of this article is to specify how different aspects of task assignments are related to different types of student discourse during the report writing phase of a science learning project. A group of four ninth-grade students of the Finnish comprehensive school (about 15-year-olds) participated in a project work involving laboratory experiments, reading literature, and analysing and reporting research findings. The empirical data were collected through videotaping and interviews in authentic classroom settings. The results indicated that construction of shared, high-level understanding was quite rare in this case of small group interaction. As one of the main reasons for this, we sugg…

Promoting Surgical Residents’ Basic Skills via the Design and Implementation of a Simulation Training Tool

Background. Surgical training in authentic work environments needs guidance practices, including simulation training within a competence-based framework. The use of simulators may actually have negative effects on professional learning if there is a lack of competence-based goals, tools, and guidance, integrated with work practices, and applied by trainers. Intervention. We designed simulation training tools to promote the surgical residents’ abilities to perform competently in basic surgical skills. Our educational and surgical team worked together and (i) specified the goals for the tasks, (ii) specified the skills to be achieved, (iii) and analyzed the learning outcomes. The assumption …

Professori Emerita Anneli Eteläpellon haastattelu

Professori Emerita Anneli Eteläpelto, olet tenhyt pitkän sekä kansallisella että kansainvälisellä tasolla merkittävän uran tutkijana. Kerrotko lyhyesti työhistoriastasi sekä siitä, miten sinusta alkujaan tuli tutkija? nonPeerReviewed

Ikääntyneet aikuiset kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puheessa

Artikkelissa kuvataan kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puhetta ikääntyneistä aikuisista ryhmämuotoisessa kuntoutuksessa. Aineisto koostuu kuudesta kuntoutustyöntekijöiden moniammatillisesta fokusryhmäkeskustelusta, jotka toteutettiin kuudessa kuntoutuslaitoksessa. Aineisto analysoitiin diskurssianalyysiä hyödyntäen. Kuntoutustyöntekijöiden puheesta tunnistettiin viisi puhetapaa, joista arviointipuhe liittyi sosiaali- ja terveysalan (sote) kontekstiin, ohjaus- ja riskipuhe asiakkaiden oppimisen ja muutoksen kontekstiin sekä toiseus- ja oivalluspuhe työntekijöiden asiantuntijuuteen. Kuntoutuksessa tavoitellusta asiakaslähtöisyyden periaatteesta huolimatta työntekijöiden arviointi-, ohjaus- ja riskipuh…

A Novel Instrument to Measure the Multidimensional Structure of Professional Agency

This study aimed to construct and validate a quantitative measurement instrument to determine the structure of professional agency in working life. Empirical data (N = 589) were collected via a web-based, theoretically informed questionnaire, within the professional domains of education, healthcare, rescue services, and information technology. The questionnaire items incorporated theoretically based dimensions of professional agency. The structure of professional agency was initially analysed via exploratory factor analysis. Thereafter, using exploratory structural equation modelling, the structure of professional agency was investigated with a view to confirmation and validation. The resul…

Challenges for surgical residents' practice-based learning

This chapter explores the practice-based learning of surgical residents. We concentrate on the challenges encountered and experienced by the residents during their clinical practice. In line with Billett (2010), we understand learning through practice as a process that arises through the exercise of occupational activities. For the surgical residents this means that they learn through participating in various kinds of hands-on surgical practices and interactions in clinical wards and units. peerReviewed

Factors promoting vocational students’ learning at work: study on student experiences

In order to promote effective pedagogical practices for students’ work-based learning, we need to understand better how students’ learning at work can be supported. This paper examines the factors explaining students’ workplace learning (WPL) outcomes, addressing three aspects: (1) student-related individual factors, (2) social and structural features of workplace and (3) educational practices related to the organising of WPL periods. The data were collected from final-year vocational students (N = 3106, n = 1603) via an Internet questionnaire. The findings from regression analysis showed that students’ WPL outcomes cannot be seen merely as consequences of student-related individual factors…

Constructing Knowledge through a Role-Play in a Web-Based Learning Environment

This study aimed to find out how and on what level the students of two separate secondary schools shared and constructed knowledge on imperialism by interacting through historical role characters in a Web-based environment. Furthermore, the study aimed to find out how social and contextual features affected the nature of knowledge sharing and construction. The data about the history project were gathered by various means in order to validate the findings of the case study. The results demonstrated that the level of the Web-based messages remained quite low. Also the use of the Web-based environment in terms of shared knowledge construction was rather weak. In comparison, different instruct…

Agency and Learning in the Work of Software Professionals

This chapter addresses software professionals’ agency and learning in work characterized by a need for innovative learning and fluency in renewing work practices. The study presented was conducted with software professionals in a medium-sized Finnish company producing digital business applications. We applied a mixed-method approach to data collection and analysis. Regarding professional agency, we found a range of opportunities to influence work-related matters. The professionals were primarily able to influence their working hours and the order of their work tasks, but had fewer opportunities to influence customer projects, or their salary. To some extent they were able to develop themsel…

Integrating Self-Reports and Electrodermal Activity (EDA) Measurement in Studying Emotions in Professional Learning

Studies on emotions in learning have been mostly conducted through self-reporting questionnaires and interviews conducted after the learning situation, which seldom focus on professional workplace learning. Meanwhile, workplace and professional learning research has been introduced with emerging methods to capture the learning processes at multiple levels. Previous research on emotions has suggested that self-reports should be supplemented with psychophysiological data. Challenged by this, this chapter aims to present and discuss the integration of self-reported and psychophysiological data in studying emotions and professional learning. The empirical research data are obtained from five Fi…

Teacher agency within the Finnish CLIL context : tensions and resources

Recent discussion indicates that the initial enthusiasm of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) teachers can be undermined by the demands of foreign-language mediated education. However, there is a lack of research on the resources and tensions that respectively support or limit the professional agency of CLIL teachers. By means of semi-structured interviews with fourteen participants, this study seeks to better understand how teacher agency is experienced by CLIL teachers working in Finnish primary schools. To examine tensions and resources in CLIL teachers’ work lives, a holistic and dynamic theoretical conceptualization of teacher agency is suggested, paying particular attenti…

Vaikutusmahdollisuuksista iloa työhön

Learning Processes in the Control Theory

An agency-promoting learning arena for developing shared work practices

Despite the emerging recognition of the pivotal role played by professional agency within work contexts, little is known about how agency is promoted and enacted in organised work-related learning settings. This chapter focuses on the work conference as an orchestrated agency-promoting learning arena. We understand professional agency as a necessary precondition of work-related learning, and we emphasise the potential of work conferences to activate and promote such agency. Our empirical study investigated three work conferences in education and healthcare organisations in Finland. Utilising assessments, the investigation addressed how the participants perceived the conditions for learning …

How do novice teachers in Finland perceive their professional agency?

This study investigated novice teachers’ perceptions of their professional agency during the initial years of their work in schools. The research questions were: (i) How do novice teachers perceive their professional agency within their work, and what do they see as the main restrictions and resources affecting that agency? (ii) How do novice teachers perceive their professional agency in the construction and renegotiation of their professional identities, and what do they see as the main restrictions and resources affecting their sense of agency? In theoretical terms, we adhere to a subject-centered sociocultural approach. This implies understanding subjects as active agents from a develop…

Tutkimus ammatti-identiteetin tukijana ja oppimisyhteisöjen rakentajana

Jos työstä viedään lyhytnäköisen tehostamisen seurauksena oppimisen kannalta tärkeimmät ainekset eli mahdollisuus arvioida omaa työtä ja mahdollisuus sosiaaliseen vuorovaikutukseen, on vaarana, että osaamisketjut sekä niitä synnyttävät ja ylläpitävät yhteisöt rapautuvat. Myös työntekijöiden ammatillinen identiteetti on vaarassa rapautua, ellei yhteisöön samastumisen ja kuulumisen sekä sen taustalla olevan luottamuksen arvoa ja osaamisen hankkimiseksi tehtyä pitkäjänteistä työtä osata riittävästi arvostaa. – Professori Anneli Eteläpellon virkaanastujaispuhe 10. marraskuuta 2004 Jyväskylän yliopistossa.

Rehabilitation agency of older adults in group-based intervention

Aims: This study investigated the individual rehabilitation agency of older adults in a one-year group-based gerontological rehabilitation context. Here, rehabilitation agency is understood as being manifested when older adults make choices and decisions regarding their everyday lives, including notions of themselves. Methods: The data were obtained via non-participant observation of the final individual goal evaluation sessions of 38 older adults with their personal counselor. In these sessions, older adults discussed their rehabilitation outcomes, actions, choices and decisions during the rehabilitation year, along with their future in home settings. The data were analyzed using qualitati…

CLIL teachers in Finland : The role of emotions in professional identity negotiation

Research on emotions has yielded many theoretical perspectives and many concepts. Yet, most scholars have focused on how emotions influence the transformation and maintenance of teacher identities in the field of teacher education and novice teachers, with little research being conducted on either experienced or foreign language teachers. This study explores emotions in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) teachers’ work and their role in identity negotiation. The data is based on interviews with thirteen CLIL teachers working at six different primary schools around Finland, while the analysis draws on Meijers’ (2002) model of identity as a learning process. According to this mod…

The Acquisition of Professional Expertise—a challenge for educational research

This article examines the acquisition of professional expertise from the educational viewpoint and outlines emerging approaches to research on expertise. The starting points are the need to reflect the nature and content of expertise in the changing world and the aim to understand the preconditions for integrating the viewpoints of working life and education in developing prerequisities for expertise in educational contexts. The section after the Introduction briefly reviews how expertise has been conceptualized in recent research. The next section deals with the role of higher education in developing expertise from the viewpoint of constructivist approaches in research on learning. Then cu…

The Practice of Professional Agency and the Emergence of Collaborative Creativity in Developmental Staff Meetings

In this study, we focused on the manifestations of professional agency and collaborative creativity in team meetings. We aimed to investigate how different kinds of professional agency are related to collaborative creativity. We used an ethnographic approach, collecting observational data from the team meetings of the Human Resource Department of a Finnish Health Care District during 2009–2010. We found that professional agency is practised in various ways in team meetings, reflecting different habitual practices and power relations. In addition, it appeared that the nature of the professional agency practised affected the emergence of collaborative creativity. An environment with a high de…

Opettajien ammatillinen identiteetti, toimijuus ja sitoutuminen väljä- ja tiukkakytkentäisessä koulutusorganisaatiossa

This article examines teachers’ work and their professional identity negotiations in two different organisation: a vocational institute and a university department of teacher education. It illustrates how the administrative regulation of educational organisations can restrict and support teachers’ professional orientation, agency and commitment to their own organisation. The research data consisted of 24 open-ended narrative interviews, which were analysed applying qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. The analysed organisations represent different ways of managing and controlling teachers’ work, which lead the researchers to describe one of them a loosely-coupled organisation…

Teachers’ pedagogical and relational identity negotiation in the Finnish CLIL context

Abstract This study explores the professional identity of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) teachers in Finnish primary education. It aims at explaining how CLIL teachers negotiate their pedagogical and relational identity, and how identity agency is exercised in negotiating a more encompassing professional identity. Thematic analysis of thirteen interviews outlines the bi-directional process of identity negotiation between personal and professional resources, and social contexts at work. The results highlight a connection between professional identity and agency, and suggest that identity negotiation is a process of working and sharing with others, but also individually.

Recent tensions and challenges in teacher education as manifested in curriculum discourse

This study seeks to contribute to discussions on the development of teacher education by analysing teacher educators' talk concerning curriculum reform. The curriculum is understood as a mediating construction between teacher educators and the social context, and the development of the curriculum is seen as a negotiation process between global discourses and local actors. Our aim was to understand the contrasting discourses used by teacher educators in talking about curriculum development, on the grounds that such discourses frame interpretations that direct the implementation of teacher education as a whole. Five contrasting interpretative repertoires were found. We illustrate these and di…

Vocational teachers in the face of major educational reform: Individual ways of negotiating professional identities.

This paper examines how vocational teachers negotiate their professional identity in the context of a major externally imposed curriculum reform. The focus is on the teachers' orientations towards the reform in its initial stage. Sixteen Finnish vocational teachers were interviewed using open-ended narrative interviews. The data were analysed in accordance with data-driven qualitative analysis methods. From the teachers' accounts, three main orientations towards the reform were identified: a resistant orientation, an inconsistent orientation and an approving orientation, each based on the teachers' individual self-positioning towards the reform. Each orientation is illustrated using two nar…