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Reviews a range of theories, concepts and learning approaches that are relevant to the development of professionals. Goes on to take a look at how professionals actually learn, once they are in practice. The latter is based on empirical research conducted across 20 professions. Reports on the range of experiences and events that practitioners had found particularly formative in helping them become fully competent professionals; this point often not having been reached until long after their formal professional training had ended. An attempt is made to relate the formative experiences reported to particular theoretical approaches to learning. The experiences are classified into a number of general kinds of “learning mechanism” and these are placed within a “taxonomy of informal professional learning methods”. The results of the research should be of use both to professional developers and to individual professionals. They should assist developers in their planning of placements or post‐formal training. They should help individual professionals to maximise their professional learning, by seeking out particular kinds of experience and making the most of those that come their way.

Considerable research has been conducted into the outcomes of vocational lifelong learning (VLL) funding in terms of courses offered and their effectiveness, but much less into the work, professional development needs and careers of staff organising and delivering VLL programmes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the career management and development needs of such university staff.

A survey was conducted of VLL professionals in higher education to establish the position and their future prospects.

A survey revealed that experienced VLL staff are being required, in some cases unwillingly, to move away from activities concerned with external training to take on work in areas such as technology transfer and general student recruitment. This development is likely to be to the detriment of VLL provision by universities.

VLL staff identify further knowledge of new developments in the field, stronger IT skills, and competence in conducting research as their major development needs.

The paper puts forward some concrete suggestions for improvements.

The purpose of this paper is to determine an effective approach to developing university vocational lifelong learning (VLL) professionals as researchers.

Two quite different approaches to developing VLL professionals as researchers were piloted, one involving face‐to‐face training and the other distance learning. These approaches were evaluated by the VLL professionals who underwent the training, and the organisers of the training. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed in the evaluation.

Evaluation of the two development methods revealed that the fact‐to‐face method was more successful due to its greater impact in the affective domain of learning, although some VLL professionals are able to develop through distance learning with close tutor support via electronic communication. Overall, the evaluation findings indicate that a combination of face‐to‐face and distance learning methods is likely to prove most effective.

The pilot national research study involved small numbers of trainees across the UK. The training may be more effectively carried out at an institutional level.

VLL professionals in higher education are increasingly called upon to conduct and to manage research. There are many calls on their time, and this research project has demonstrated an effective approach to their training in VLL research within a very limited time period.

No methods for developing university VLL professionals as researchers have previously been piloted or evaluated. The research demonstrates the effectiveness of a training method combining face‐to‐face and distance learning.

In an earlier article, published in 1996, the authors described a provisional model of professional competence which attempted to harmonise the “reflective practitioner” paradigm (developed by Schön and now espoused by many professional education programmes) with competence‐based approaches. The latter included both the “functional outcomes” approach and the “personal competence” approach. Views on the composite model were sought from readers of this journal. The model was also tested as part of a programme of empirical work across 20 different professions. This paper offers a revised version of the model which takes account of the suggestions made by a significant number of respondents, as well as observations from the empirical work.

Focuses on the nature of professional practice based on research conducted with practitioners via interviews and questionnaires. Aims to determine how practitioners actually tackle professional problem solving. Discusses reflection, specialised knowledge and repertoires of solutions, among other factors, and examines differences in professional practice according to age, gender and membership of various professions. Finds that although specialist knowledge is crucial to successful practice, improvisation is a key factor. Suggests that a combination of applied knowledge and reflection is important in professional practice.

There is much agreement in the literature that reflection on practice is critically important for the full development and ongoing learning of professionals. The methods of reflection on professional practice reported to date have been developed primarily in the context of professional education in group settings led by a tutor. Research is underway into ways in which managers can be developed as learning facilitators in the workplace. However, there are increasing limitations on the significance of this approach to the continuing development of professionals. The research reported here shows that in‐depth research interviews with professionals to investigate their work and learning can play an important part in supporting their reflection in‐depth on their practice. An analysis of the processes involved, and the characteristics of the three research interviewers involved, indicates that human resource development professionals could be trained for the role of learning facilitators of professionals through 1:1 discourse in the form of in‐depth interviews.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the ways in which postgraduate study in vocational fields supports the development of advanced competences amongst mid‐career professionals.

The extensive written communications between health and safety professionals taking a postgraduate course in health and safety management and their tutor were investigated to determine the competence domains where learning was taking place or attempted. The individual written communications were analysed and each issue raised allocated to a learning area. The quantitative results for each area were determined. The learning areas were assigned to one or more competence development domains.

The quantified results demonstrate that the main domain where mid‐career professionals on this postgraduate course were most strongly challenged to learn and develop in advanced competences was the meta‐competence domain on the Cheetham and Chivers model.

This study was based on written communications passing between a limited number of students and one tutor on a single postgraduate study programme. There is clearly great scope to extend this form of research given the large number of postgraduate vocational study programmes now undertaken by mid‐career professionals.

Tutors need to focus strongly on supporting the very demanding learning leading to the growth of meta‐competencies. Given the ready availability of relevant factual information to mid‐career professionals in the information age, there is much less need to focus on teaching facts, although supporting the interpretation and application of such factual information by students retains great importance.

Few other studies exist which attempt to analyse written communications between tutors and postgraduate students on professional/vocational courses in terms of how such courses are developing professional competences.

Describes a model of professional competence which attempts to bring together a number of apparently disparate views of competence, including the “outcomes” approach, a key feature of UK National Vocational Qualifications, and the “reflective practitioner” approach, suggested by Schon and now well recognized within professional education programmes.