Korpi H1, Peltokallio L1, Piirainen A1
1University of Jyväskylä, Department of Health Sciences, Jyväskylä, Finland
Background: Expertise and professional identity is constructed in a socio-cultural process between school and working life in the health care sector Reflections on learning (Piirainen & Viitanen, 2010) and instructed practical training (Laitinen-Väänänen 2008, 13; Bartlett, Lucy, Bisbee, & Conti-Becker, 2009) are important in developing as an expert in physiotherapy. Professional development includes our personal development, the whole person, as well. Previous life experience, internal motivation, problem or life centered orientation and capability to learn for real life situations play an important role in learning. Besides the above the profession`s “need to know” issues are important to recognize in adults' learning (Knowles 1980, 43; Knowles 2012, 181). Work places and work practices are important for learning tacit knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and the professional role of the physiotherapist.
The European Qualification Framework (EQF) defines the learning outcomes in education and they focus on what knowledge, skills and competences the learner has acquired by the end of the learning process, but it does not identify how outcomes are achieved.
Purpose: This study is interested in achieving a comprehensive and longitudinal understanding of students' professional development during the whole study time. The aim of this study is to investigate and understand physiotherapy students' stories about their professional development during their whole study time in physiotherapy.
Methods: The goal was to carry out a meta-synthesis of researchers' primary empirical research studies (2014, 2017, 2018) of physiotherapy students' professional development in order to produce a new and integrative interpretation of the findings to provide a metanarrative of the students' professional development (Timulak 2007).
The data was collected from three different higher education institutions from different parts of Finland. Longitudinal data was collected during 3.5 years in all institutions. 21 voluntary students wrote portfolios during the whole period of their studies. The data consists of 2002 typewritten A4 pages of students' own learning experiences.
Results: Physiotherapy students` metanarrative proceeds chronologically in the following phases:
1. Previous experience,
2. Learning to learn,
3. Learning physiotherapy practical work, which includes: basis of practical work, meaning of the profession, wholeness of the work and critical reflection on the work, and
4. Turning professional in physiotherapy. Students' individual multi-stored narratives lead to professional development.
This study brings a new kind of complementary information about professional development for developing health care education and its curricula. It is essential to recognize different elements of professional development in different stages. The different stages are equally meaningful and important in the process of development for expertise.
Conclusion(s): The essential thematic of professional development was previous experience, new learning, work agency, and work culture. Learners connected new knowledge with lived experience and weaved it into the existing multi-stored narratives of meaning. Professional development brought hope for the students.
Implications: The results may benefit other health care educational programs than physiotherapy as well as other vocational education programs in understanding the entire process of students' professional development during their studies and the meaning of work places and work culture in the development process.
Keywords: physiotherapy education, physiotherapy student, professional development
Funding acknowledgements: The authors sincerely thank the University of Jyväskylä for receiving a university grant for completing a doctoral thesis.
The European Qualification Framework (EQF) defines the learning outcomes in education and they focus on what knowledge, skills and competences the learner has acquired by the end of the learning process, but it does not identify how outcomes are achieved.
Purpose: This study is interested in achieving a comprehensive and longitudinal understanding of students' professional development during the whole study time. The aim of this study is to investigate and understand physiotherapy students' stories about their professional development during their whole study time in physiotherapy.
Methods: The goal was to carry out a meta-synthesis of researchers' primary empirical research studies (2014, 2017, 2018) of physiotherapy students' professional development in order to produce a new and integrative interpretation of the findings to provide a metanarrative of the students' professional development (Timulak 2007).
The data was collected from three different higher education institutions from different parts of Finland. Longitudinal data was collected during 3.5 years in all institutions. 21 voluntary students wrote portfolios during the whole period of their studies. The data consists of 2002 typewritten A4 pages of students' own learning experiences.
Results: Physiotherapy students` metanarrative proceeds chronologically in the following phases:
1. Previous experience,
2. Learning to learn,
3. Learning physiotherapy practical work, which includes: basis of practical work, meaning of the profession, wholeness of the work and critical reflection on the work, and
4. Turning professional in physiotherapy. Students' individual multi-stored narratives lead to professional development.
This study brings a new kind of complementary information about professional development for developing health care education and its curricula. It is essential to recognize different elements of professional development in different stages. The different stages are equally meaningful and important in the process of development for expertise.
Conclusion(s): The essential thematic of professional development was previous experience, new learning, work agency, and work culture. Learners connected new knowledge with lived experience and weaved it into the existing multi-stored narratives of meaning. Professional development brought hope for the students.
Implications: The results may benefit other health care educational programs than physiotherapy as well as other vocational education programs in understanding the entire process of students' professional development during their studies and the meaning of work places and work culture in the development process.
Keywords: physiotherapy education, physiotherapy student, professional development
Funding acknowledgements: The authors sincerely thank the University of Jyväskylä for receiving a university grant for completing a doctoral thesis.
Topic: Education; Education: continuing professional development
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: University of Jyväskylä
Ethics committee: University of Jyväskylä ethics committee
Ethics number: approved in 9.5.2012
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
