Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (HiOA): Open Access Journals
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Measuring Outcomes of Interprofessional Education: A Validation Study of the Self-Assessment of Collaboration Skills Measure
No full textIncreased attention is being focused on the need for interprofessional collaboration between professional actors, in various fields. In turn, this creates a demand for validated, context-neutral instruments to measure outcomes of interprofessional education. The initial validation of one such measure, the Self-Assessment of Collaboration Skills (SACS) measure, has shown promising results in this regard. The aim of this article has been to contribute to the validation process of the SACS measure by presenting the results of a cross-validation of the measure in a sample of Norwegian students (N= 499) attending a children and youth-focused IPE programme. The study\u27s findings both indicated that the measure is quite stable across the different settings and supported the claim that the SACS is a context-neutral instrument—one that is well-suited to measuring collaboration skills in various IPE settings. These findings may prove important for professionals seeking to evaluate IPE programmes with broad study profiles
Social Closures: Reconfiguration of Professional Work in the Danish State School
No full textThe interconnectedness between the formation of a professional group and its specific tasks and competencies is at the core of sociological theories of professions. In neo-Weberian approaches to social closure, the shaping and maintenance of professional groups have been conceptualised as state-sanctioned efforts to gain control over a specific task area. However, whereas legally sanctioned monopolies have been subject to certain attention, the social dynamics of processes of professional closure in everyday work practices seem relatively unexplored. This article demonstrates how social closure can be analysed as interrelated processes, covering legal as well as practical, symbolic elements. Drawing on the case of the 2014 Danish School Reform and its introduction of a new professional group in Danish schools, “pedagogues”, the article sheds light on the interplay between a state-driven reconfiguration of a task area and the subtle dynamics of symbolic struggles between the two professions teachers and pedagogues.
‘It is like a hammer and toothbrush; you need it for the rest of your life’ – Five Norwegian teachers’ experiences of working at a ‘thinking school’
No full textThis article investigates how a group of Norwegian teachers experience working at a ‘thinking school’ (i.e. a school that cooperates with UK-based consultancy Thinking Matters). The context is curriculum development in Norway, where schools and teachers are given increasing freedom in terms of what methods to apply and what content to teach while being expected to reflect and develop collectively as professional communities. In this setting, it is interesting to see how teachers utilise the tools and models offered by an external actor and how they negotiate between these and their own pedagogical ideas as well as the demands put on them by the curriculum. We approached this study by firstly analysing two documents published by Thinking Matters, and secondly by asking how the teachers experience the effects of the thinking school approach on pupils’ learning and themselves as professional teachers. We interviewed five teachers who emphasised several positive aspects of working within the thinking school approach. However, in this article, we also identify some tensions resulting from the adoption of a whole-school approach that emphasises the methods that teachers should use and that pupils should master as a way of achieving the overarching aims of the curriculum
Covid-19 i Danmark: Ind i og ud af krisen
No full textArtiklen giver først en kort oversigt over covid-19-håndteringens forløb fra krisens udbrud i 2020 til 2022, hvor der er en forventning om covid-19’s forvandling fra en alvorlig og svært kontrollabel sygdom til en endemisk viruslidelse. Næste afsnit gennemgår krisens politiske og administrative beslutningsprocesser, dels under selve krisen i strikt forstand, dels i den lange fase hvor det har handlet om administrativt og politisk at håndtere et samfundsproblem, som ikke ville gå væk. Det sidste afsnit tager krisehåndteringens ret alvorlige kvalitative aspekter op. Det drejer sig om de demokratiske problemer, som krisehåndteringen snarere end krisen aktualiserede, det faglige beslutningsgrundlag (sundhedsfagligt, juridisk, økonomisk og adfærdsvidenskabeligt) og endelig spørgsmålet om, hvordan man kvalitetssikrer krisehåndteringen.The paper presents an overview of Danish Covid-19-crisis management as it developed from its outbreak to its status as an endemic virus. This is followed by an analysis of political and administrative decision making during the crisis and during the protracted series of events where the handling of problems that would not go away attracted all political attention. Finally, the paper discusses the important qualitative issues that were raised both by the crisis and by its political handling. These issues were democratic, legal, and professional (health professional, economic, and behavioral)
What is the Public Interest in Professional Regulation? Canadian Regulatory Leaders’ Views in a Context of Change
No full textProfessions are regulated in the public interest, but precisely what the term “public interest” means can vary across time and place. Research exploring changes to professional regulation in the West has begun to identify such shifts: for instance, highlighting the emphasis on consumer satisfaction and public protection over other potential meanings of the public interest. To understand these societal shifts and their implications for professional regulation, this article first reviews neo-Weberian theories of rationalization, and empirical literature. Subsequently, it presents findings from interviews with regulatory leaders across six Canadian provinces to determine if the trends in rationalization identified are reflected in leaders’ accounts of professional regulation in the public interest. Interviews reveal that many leaders define the public interest in ways consistent with technical rationality, including a safety lens and consumer orientation; however, there is also evidence of broader meanings and values. The implications of these findings are discussed
A Pedagogy of Suspensions: Infrathin Variations between London and Manchester
No full textThis paper takes as its catalyst a series of live art events that took place between London and Manchester in 2019. Thinking in conversation with Erin Manning’s propositions for “minor movements” and the Duchampian “infrathin”, we explore the potential for live art to temporarily suspend the thresholds of perceptibility and permissibility in the public realm. We argue that artful techniques of improvisation carry the potential to suspend capitalistic orderings of time by temporarily confounding the perceived barriers between art and life. Drawing together anarchival traces of improvised movement, sound, image, and thought, the paper is composed of vignettes that sketch the infrathin variations of a “pedagogy of suspensions” as elaborated through live art events in a public park, a moving train, a university gymnasium, and an anechoic sound chamber
Enabling Knowledge: The Art of Nurturing Unknown Spaces
No full textThis article is both an exploration and a reflection on the process of generating knowledge from an encounter with the unknown. It documents what practising the ‘ethics of the unknown’ (Eeg-Tverbakk 2016) consisted of and what insights it led to in relation to two projects: ‘Childism’ (2015), based on documents from an informant who experienced child abuse, and ‘Embodied’ (2018), a performance lecture presenting both research and lived experience of involuntary childlessness. To reflect the fluidity, multi-directionality and, at points, messiness- of the process of practising the ethics of the unknown, theory and practice are not as rigidly separated in the text as the conventions of academic publication would normally require. The text alternates analysis, the voices of the authors, as well as sound files and images designed to offer experiential glimpses into the performances and the arguments. Theoretically, the concepts outlined are inspired by quite different strands of materialist thinking (object-oriented philosophy and new materialism). The research takes liberties when relating to different philosophical concepts that have proven to be useful in the practice of staging documentary material. We are not proposing a ‘method’ but rather arguing along with Erin Manning for ‘research creation’, where methods have to be invented and developed for each project. As such, this article also places itself within the discussions on post-qualitative, non-representational and performative research.This article is both an exploration and a reflection on the process of generating knowledge from an encounter with the unknown. It documents what practising the ‘ethics of the unknown’ (Eeg-Tverbakk 2016) consisted of and what insights it led to in relation to two projects: ‘Childism’ (2015), based on documents from an informant who experienced child abuse, and ‘Embodied’ (2018), a performance lecture presenting both research and lived experience of involuntary childlessness. To reflect the fluidity, multi-directionality and, at points, messiness- of the process of practising the ethics of the unknown, theory and practice are not as rigidly separated in the text as the conventions of academic publication would normally require. The text alternates analysis, the voices of the authors, as well as sound files and images designed to offer experiential glimpses into the performances and the arguments. Theoretically, the concepts outlined are inspired by quite different strands of materialist thinking (object-oriented philosophy and new materialism). The research takes liberties when relating to different philosophical concepts that have proven to be useful in the practice of staging documentary material. We are not proposing a ‘method’ but rather arguing along with Erin Manning for ‘research creation’, where methods have to be invented and developed for each project. As such, this article also places itself within the discussions on post-qualitative, non-representational and performative research
Connective Enactment and Collective Accomplishment in Professional Practices
No full textWorking with others is key to professionalism but little attention has been given to how specific actions contribute to collective practices to secure shared ends in work. This essay considers how professionals’ actions connect with one another in distributed (multi-participant) work practices. Recently, Hopwood, Blomberg, Dahlberg and Abrant Dahlgren identified a new way of viewing how professionals in distributed practices coordinate their actions to accomplish shared ends, in terms of phenomena they describe as “connective enactments” and “collective accomplishments”. In this essay, we explore the possibility that these phenomena have far more general application than the cases studied by Hopwood et al. We use the theory of practice architectures to outline this more general account and test its viability in by examining a case of culinary services practices. This more generalised account may offer new ways to understand features of distributed work practices and enhance professional practice and learning
Revisiting a CAD course in the midst of the global pandemic with an activity-centered framework : Reflections from design students
No full textInevitably, the global pandemic that occurred in 2020 had a significant impact on the practices of design education, and apparently, design teachers were not fully prepared and equipped. In this ambivalent and emergent era, they struggled to adapt their current teaching methods to online education. Since then, various teaching methods have been developed and applied to incorporate online delivery. As we see an invitation to advance learner-centered and process-based teaching approaches regarding Computer-Aided Design (CAD) education in the literature; in this article, we address how a constructively aligned CAD course has been adapted to online learning and how it affected design students’ learning experiences. Hence, we discuss the online CAD learning experience through students’ reflections based on the Activity-Centered Analysis and Design (ACAD) Framework. To get insights into their online learning experience on CAD, we asked students to write their thoughts based on a structured qualitative course evaluation template. Broadly, online learning practices in CAD not only resulted in challenges in design learning but also created opportunities as mentioned in students’ writings. Based on qualitative content analysis, students’ reflections on a CAD class implemented under the context of online learning can include both advantages and disadvantages of the online learning platform, peer learning, peer tutoring, active involvement in the class, communication, etc. As a result, students’ reflections on the CAD course made us think that the dimensions of the ACAD Framework are interwoven and interactive
Plunged into dance: Creating choreographic-pedagogic propositions as a collaborative learning community in primary school
No full textWith this practice-based study we inquire into choreographic-pedagogic intertwinements (Østern, 2018) as a cooperative learning community between a choreographer-researcher-teacher and four primary school teachers. We have co-created the article from our experiences with a creative dance project with the third graders in a public primary school in Norway. Through exploring four stop-moments (Fels & Belliveau, 2008) we tap into an artistic and textual diffractive analysis (Bozalek & Zembylas, 2017; Lenz Taguchi, 2012). The study is created through the expanded notion of choreography (Foster, 2010; Klien & Valk, 2007; Lepecki, 2006) and carried out as a performative research (Østern et al., 2021) situated in the theoretical landscape of agential realism (Barad, 2007). With this study we challenge the gap between art and school, and the professional practices of teachers and artists (Hall, Thomson & Russell, 2007), the professional competencies and differences of the artist and of the teacher (Christophersen, 2013b) becoming performative in the dance project