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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
Details
Keywords
The main aims of this paper are to determine the extent to which experienced traders in investment banks based in London are learning by informal methods, which methods are to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The main aims of this paper are to determine the extent to which experienced traders in investment banks based in London are learning by informal methods, which methods are to the fore, and whether HRD staff are providing support for informal learning. It also seeks to find evidence that such investment banks were attempting to become learning organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical research was conducted involving in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with experienced traders, line managers of traders, and HRD professionals involved in the training of traders in London based investment banks.
Findings
Most of the ongoing learning conducted by traders was informal, and on‐the‐job in nature. This informal learning was ad hoc, poorly recorded, and limited in scope. Support of line managers to learning by their subordinate traders was patchy, with little accountability. HRD professionals were almost entirely concerned with organising formal training courses, and had little knowledge of, or involvement with, informal learning by traders. There was very little evidence of investment banks striving to become learning organisations.
Research limitations/implications
The research study was limited to those investment banks willing to take part in the study, and by the banks selecting those to be interviewed.
Practical implications
Investment banks have become a powerful component of the UK economy, and the ways in which their traders learn, or could learn, effectively in terms of competence improvement is key to the performance of these banks.
Originality/value
Informal learning by traders in investment banks in the UK has been little researched to date. This paper addresses this inadequacy.
Details
Keywords
THE Wanstead Library is just round the corner from the shopping centre in the High Street where the old shop branch existed for many years. The new Library is a large…
Abstract
THE Wanstead Library is just round the corner from the shopping centre in the High Street where the old shop branch existed for many years. The new Library is a large, single‐storey structure with floor to ceiling windows facing Christchurch Green, a charming open space with well established trees. This spacious, attractive building is in complete contrast to the cramped accommodation previously occupied and local reaction has been emphatically favourable.
IT is rarely possible to place on record expressions of appreciation concerning Municipal Libraries. More often than not remarks are heard about these institutions being an…
Abstract
IT is rarely possible to place on record expressions of appreciation concerning Municipal Libraries. More often than not remarks are heard about these institutions being an incubus and a burden on the rates, merely the haunts of loungers, and so forth. A public‐spirited citizen has, however, come forward at Halifax, and in a most interesting leader in the local paper has paid a splendid tribute to the library service of that town. Speaking of the public libraries, he says: “But in one respect we really do lead, and strangely enough it is the one thing that our local patriots rarely mention, perhaps because the subject is outside their sphere. I refer to our Municipal Libraries, which I believe are the finest, or certainly among the finest, in the country; and as I like to be patriotic when I can, and would rather speak well than ill of anything or anybody, I propose to pay a little tribute to these institutions. But just let me say that if we have finer libraries in Halifax than many much larger places possess, we owe it almost entirely to our Chief Librarian and those who work under him.”
Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
Clive Bingley, Allan Bunch and Edwin Fleming
HOW DREAR the month of August seemed, bereft as it was of any issue of that influential and deservedly world‐famous organ, the Library Association record. For its masters have now…
Abstract
HOW DREAR the month of August seemed, bereft as it was of any issue of that influential and deservedly world‐famous organ, the Library Association record. For its masters have now decreed that July and August should be combined into a single issue, which they call ‘Numbers 7 & 8’ (which is cheating—suppose I gave two numbers to each issue of NLW, and then proudly claimed to publish 24 issues per year!).
THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham…
Abstract
THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.
Clive Bingley, Edwin Fleming and Sarah Lawson
I WAS lunching recently with a friend who reckons he has about ten more years to go in libraries before retirement, and he raised an interesting question. Given the realisation…
Abstract
I WAS lunching recently with a friend who reckons he has about ten more years to go in libraries before retirement, and he raised an interesting question. Given the realisation that one will not, at his age, now be likely to make chief, what can a senior and experienced librarian do by way of interesting alternative to just serving out time?
BRIAN GRIFFIN, BOB USHERWOOD, LL ARDERN, ROSEMARY JACKSON, ALAN DAY, CATHERINE ROTHWELL, ROBERT BALAY, JFW BYRON, JON ELLIOTT, AGS ENSER and MEGAN THOMAS
ALTHOUGH you are reading a professional journal, you may be interested in the impressions of a semi‐outsider, one who has teetered on the edge of the maelstrom of modern…
Abstract
ALTHOUGH you are reading a professional journal, you may be interested in the impressions of a semi‐outsider, one who has teetered on the edge of the maelstrom of modern librarianship without actually having fallen in—yet. The experience may even be salutary; who knows?
HIS holidays over, before the individual and strenuous winter work of his library begins, the wise librarian concentrates for a few weeks on the Annual Meeting of the Library…
Abstract
HIS holidays over, before the individual and strenuous winter work of his library begins, the wise librarian concentrates for a few weeks on the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. This year the event is of unusual character and of great interest. Fifty years of public service on the part of devoted workers are to be commemorated, and there could be no more fitting place for the commemoration than Edinburgh. It is a special meeting, too, in that for the first time for many years the Library Association gathering will take a really international complexion. If some too exacting critics are forward to say that we have invited a very large number of foreign guests to come to hear themselves talk, we may reply that we want to hear them. There is a higher significance in the occasion than may appear on the surface—for an effort is to be made in the direction of international co‐operation. In spite of the excellent work of the various international schools, we are still insular. Now that the seas are open and a trip to America costs little more than one to (say) Italy, we hope that the way grows clearer to an almost universal co‐working amongst libraries. It is overdue. May our overseas guests find a real atmosphere of welcome, hospitality and friendship amongst us this memorable September!