KNOWING – IN - ACTION

Donald A. Schon, The Reflective Practitioner, New

York, Basic Book, 1983

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PROFESSIONALS: a definition

PEOPLE WITH EXTRAORDINARY (EXPERT/SOPHISTICATED/SPECIALIST) KNOWLEDGE IN MATTERS OF GREAT (HUMAN) SOCIAL IMPORTANCE

[Everret Hughes, 1959]

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PROFESSIONALS AND SOCIETY

IN EXCHANGE SOCIETY GRANTS PROFESSIONALS EXTRAORDINARY RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES AND SOCIAL STATUS

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PROFESSIONS

PROFESSIONS CLAIM BENIGN INTENT AND AN ETHICAL BASIS, THE EFFECTS OF WHICH ARE SEEN IN PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOURS AND ATTITUDES AND EXEMPLIFIED BY PUBLISHED, DUTY-BASED CODES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT. THESE VIRTUES LEGITIMIZE THE POWER TO ACT WITHOUT REFERENCE TO EXTERNAL AGENCIES

(Blane, 1991; Benson, 1992)

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OCCUPATION

AN ACTIVITY OR TASK WITH WHICH ONE OCCUPIES ONESELF; USUALLY SPECIFICALLY THE PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY, SERVICE, TRADE, OR CRAFT FOR WHICH ONE IS REGULARLY PAID

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FROM OCCUPATION TO PROFESSION

A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through the development of formal qualifications based upon education and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights.

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ROAD TO PROFESSIONALISM

The process by which a profession arises from a trade or occupation is often called professionalisation

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PROFESSIONALIZATION

1. Starts with the establishment of the activity as a full-time occupation

2. Progresses through the establishment of training schools and university links

3. Reaches the formation of a professional association

4. Engages in the struggle to gain legal support for exclusion

5. Culminates with the formation of a formal code of ethics.

(Wilensky, 1964)

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DECLINE OF PROFESSIONALS: EXTERNAL FACTORS

Existing armamentarium of theories and techniques applied by professionals to remove the troubles that beset society has no longer public confidence.

Professional practice is under stronger scrutiny than in the past

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DECLINE OF PROFESSIONALS: INTERNAL FACTOR

Professional crisis of confidence focuses on the mismatch of traditional pattern of practice and knowledge to features of the practice situation – complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict

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FROM SAVIOURS TO PROBLEM MAKERS The concept of the ‘technological fix’ and

the solutions advocated on it creates more problems that solves them.

The solutions are derived from theories which had been shown to be fragile and incomplete

Public predicaments of the society began to seem less like problems to be solved through expertise than like dilemmas, whose resolution could come about only through moral and political choices.

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CONFLICT BETWEEN VALUES AND BUREAUCRACY – THE PRESURE FOR EFFICIENCY

The situations of practice are inherently unstable

Professional knowledge is mismatched to the changing character of the situations of practice – the complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflicts are increasingly perceived as central to the world of professional practice

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TECHNICAL RATIONALITY The application of general principle to

specific problems - a feature of modern societies.

Professional knowledge as the application of scientific theory and technique to the instrumental problems of practice

It is the Positivist epistemology of practice for which research – as natural science research – is the basis for professional practice

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KNOWING-IN PRACTICE

Competent practitioners usually know more than they can say

They know how to do but not how to describe it

The evidence of such knowledge is tacit

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THEORY EXPOSED AND THEORY IN USE

What we say are the principles leading our action (exposed)

The hidden principles that lead our action (in use)

[Argyris, 1999]

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REFLECTION IN ACTION Selective management of large amounts of

information Spin out long lines of invention on inference Hold several ways of looking at things at once

without disrupting the flow of inquiry Spiral of: appreciation, action, re-appreciation Understand through attempt to change, and

change through the attempt to understand

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FROM PROBLEM SOLVING TO PROBLEM SETTING SOLVING

choosing the best suited mean for an established end

SETTINGprocess by which we define the decision to be made, the end to be achieved, the means which may be chosen

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PROBLEM SETTING

Process in which, interactively, we name the things to which we will attend and frame the context in which we will attend to them

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PRACTICE Things a professional does (performance in

a range of professional situations) Kind of clients s/he has The range of cases s/he is called upon to handle

Repetitive or experimental activity by which one tries to increase his/her proficiency (preparation for a performance)

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STABLE, REPETITIVE PRACTICE, ROUTINE Developing a repertoire of

Expectations Images Techniques

Less surprise Knowing-in-practice is increasingly

Tacit Spontaneous Automatic

Over learned what s/he knows

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PRACTICE IN CONTEXT Between high ground (research based

theories) and swamp (practicing with messes)