Role of work-integrated learning in developing professionalism and professional identity

There is an increasing focus on the student as the nexus of integrating classroom and workplace learning. In the university context students are learners and in the workplace context students are pre-accredited professionals and in both contexts they can be facilitators of peer learning. Student participation in professional roles through workplace learning experiences are opportunities for transformative learning that shape professional identity formation and a sense of professionalism. Drawing on a higher education literature review of professional identity formation and a case study that explored how professionalism was understood, talked about and experienced by lecturers and students, this paper explores the role of work-integrated learning and its place in the curriculum to enhance professional identity development and professionalism. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2012, 13(3), 159-167)

[1]  Zygmunt Bauman,et al.  Education in Liquid Modernity , 2005 .

[2]  Stephen Richard Billett,et al.  Realising the educational worth of integrating work experiences in higher education , 2009 .

[3]  S. Grace,et al.  Developing professionalism in physiotherapy and dietetics students in professional entry courses , 2013 .

[4]  S. Kemmis.  Understanding Professional Practice: A Synoptic Framework , 2009 .

[5]  M. Campbell,et al.  Values, ethics and empowering the self through cooperative education , 2011 .

[6]  R. Barnett.  Framing Education for Practice , 2010 .

[7]  Pia Bramming.  An Argument for Strong Learning in Higher Education , 2007 .

[8]  Sofia Nyström,et al.  The Dynamics of Professional Identity Formation: Graduates’ Transitions from Higher Education to Working Life , 2009 .

[9]  S. Brookfield,et al.  Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World , 2010 .

[10]  Ian Hardy,et al.  Enabling praxis: challenges for education , 2008 .

[11]  F. Trede,et al.  Teaching reflective practice in practice settings: students' perceptions of their clinical educators , 2012 .

[12]  N. Denzin,et al.  The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 3rd ed. , 2005 .

[13]  L. de Cossart,et al.  Thinking outside the (tick) box: rescuing professionalism and professional judgement , 2006, Medical education.

[14]  P. Cranton.  A transformative perspective on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , 2011 .

[15]  Stephen Brookfield,et al.  Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question Their Assumptions , 2011 .

[16]  L. McAllister,et al.  The practice and praxis of professional decision-making , 2009 .

[17]  Alison Fuller,et al.  Critiquing theories of learning and communities of practice , 2013 .

[18]  R. Macklin,et al.  Professional identity development: a review of the higher education literature , 2012 .

[19]  A. Chur-Hansen,et al.  Ethical Enculturation: The Informal and Hidden Ethics Curricula at an Australian Medical School , 2004 .

[20]  M. Eraut.  Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work. , 2000, The British journal of educational psychology.

[21]  L. Todres,et al.  Embodying Nursing Openheartedness , 2009, Journal of holistic nursing : official journal of the American Holistic Nurses' Association.

[22]  Jacqueline M. McGinty.  Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World , 2014 .