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Graham Cheetham: Senior Training Adviser with the Department for Education and Employment, UK
Geoff Chivers: Professor of Continuing Education at the University of Sheffield, UK
Background to research and need for a model
In late 1994, the authors commenced research into how professionals acquire and maintain their professionalism and the extent to which this is assisted by formal education and development programmes. One aim of the research is to try to improve the design of existing programmes. The research, to date, has included a review of the considerable body of literature relating to professional education and development, and the growing body relating to vocational competence. Empirical work is being conducted during 1996. This is seeking the insights of experienced professionals on the kinds of developmental process (both formal and informal) which had been particularly formative in developing the various aspects of their professional competence.
Before the empirical work could begin, it was necessary to construct a model of professional competence. This would both form a conceptual framework for, and itself be tested by, the empirical stage.
This article describes the provisional model, developed by the authors, and invites comments on it from those with experience in similar areas.
Constructing the model
Competence, in any sphere of work, can be a difficult concept to pin down. It is particularly difficult when it relates to professional occupations where roles can be complex and the knowledge and skills involved many and varied.
In developing a model of professional competence, the authors were not, of course, starting from scratch. Between them, they had a considerable amount of prior experience in the competence and professional development fields. They were also able to draw on a range of existing models and protocols for describing competence, and on the extensive literature on professional education and development. The aim was not to produce a hybrid which attempted to reconcile every conflicting hypothesis, but to seek out coherent elements within different approaches and bring these together in a single, holistic model.
The model described in this paper attempts to unify the "outcomes" approach to competence, a key feature within UK National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), and the "reflective practitioner" approach, described by Schon[1, 2] and now popular within professional education programmes in both the UK...