People Involved:

Eileen Carnell

Tags:

Eileen Carnell   experiences   professional learning   2005/6   Final Report  

Project Outputs:

 Project Sheet 118.89 Kb

 Project Report: Understanding higher professional learning 775.47 Kb

Summary

Examining success factors in completion of the EdD by experienced education professionals

This project involves the participants who have completed the EdD programme in order to find out how the completion of the programme has affected what they have done subsequently. It enables familiarity with the participants' and tutors' views on the impacts and benefits of the programme, what participants do on the programme, their perceptions on what they are learning and the most significant connections with their work contexts.

This project will also examine the present participants' and graduates' perceptions of:

1. the contributing factors in supporting them in either completing current coursework requirements or completing the whole programme
2. the inhibiting factors

The project will suggest changes and recommendations.

Alongside this project a second theme shall be investigated:

Investigating higher professional learning

There will be work in partnership with some EdD students to look at the processes by which learning takes place and professional practice is transformed through the conduct of workplace-based research.

It has been suggested that we could carry out an analysis of the statements that EdD students make about the relationship between their EdD work and their professional practice (for instance in the statements they make for the portfolio and the thesis examination).

It has been suggested that the analysis of the statements be supported by interviews with a number of EdD participants to gain further knowledge about the transformation of professional practice.

Ideas for the other projects that have been identified so far are listed below. This will be done by calling on a range of people with particular interest and expertise in the field and if possible and appropriate with EdD students.

Creating cross-cohort special interest groups based around particular areas of professional work and related research

We could identify a number of groups of people (both within and between the two EdD courses) and develop ways of networking and interacting. These people may be interested in medical education but, because they are in different year groups, they do not meet or otherwise share what they are doing.  This could be computer mediated or f2f or both. This could be an opportunity to develop our online conferencing and support for EdD students.

Developing innovative forms of assessment relating to workplace learning

This could involve developing the portfolio idea further with a greater diversity of material. It could involve colleagues or other education professionals more explicitly in the process of assessment. One thing that I would particularly like to look at is the thesis - how we develop something that is distinctively EdD, and in particular distinctively Institute EdD. This relates very much to the form of partnership between HE and workplaces in higher professional learning. In doing this it is clearly important not to conflate 'workplace' with 'employer'. In many cases students are doing the EdD for themselves and their own professional development, as well as being concerned with wider benefits within their institution. The degree of articulation between this work and the workplace varies. Employers might have a strong interest and be very supportive, but do not have ownership of the research being done. Any developments in the area of assessment would have to take this into consideration.

Developing materials for workplace-based research education

This would involve development of online or other flexible and distance education resources for people to use in gaining research skills and developing research projects in workplace settings. I'm thinking here of material that could be used off-site (ie in the workplace) and that relate particularly to the issues that arise and the methods that are used in workplace based research at EdD level. We could do this in conjunction with the people developing materials for the online MRes. We could draw on the experiences of some of our students and graduates who have much to say about the process of doing this kind of work and it would act as a good way of disseminating their work and of the EdD more generally.

Involving our students and the research they are doing with the work of the Centre

This means finding ways of involving the EdD students in the networks that will be created by and around the Centre. Again, this could create another opportunity for dissemination of EdD research and of what we are learning about high-level workplace learning through research.