Read a review of our joint webinar with ACEN
14 October 2024
In this post Dr Joanna Tai, CRADLE Senior Research Fellow, reviews CRADLE’s joint webinar with ACEN on professional identity development and the role of work-integrated learning and communities of practice.
It was wonderful to join a seminar co-hosted by ACEN and CRADLE on “Professional identity development and the role of work-integrated learning and communities of practice”, with presenters Professor Denise Jackson, Professor Michael Tomlinson and Dr Thi Kim Anh Dang. Together they offered a useful summary of the research around the ways in which professional identity can be developed through work-integrated learning (WIL) and how Communities of Practice could play a role.
Denise began offering an overview of the landscape of perspectives on professional identity, pre-professional identity, and the diversity of graduates and workplaces. Michael and Denise then explored more deeply some of these conceptualisations, and that more than skills
individuals’ agency and how they navigate the labour market are important aspects to consider.
Michael offered different perspectives on how this might be operationalised, including his own work on graduate capitals. Denise highlighted Baxter-Magolda’s conceptualisation of self-authorship as a useful framing for WIL experiences.
Kim then offered an example of professional identity development in practice through her ACEN funded research project on developing a community of practise for engineering WIL students. She demonstrated the importance of peer learning and the opportunity to discuss in a safe space to create meaning together. Kim also highlighted how important WIL was for students to understand the scope of potential graduate capabilities including both technical, relational and embodied aspects of working and learning to work within particular contexts and environments.
Finally, Michael offered considerations of future research and practise opportunities,
highlighting the importance of considering the development of professional identity over time
and seeing that trajectory developed and how early universities might need to start in considering and articulating the importance of professional identity. He also highlighted (as we have been discussing in our recent international symposium) the role that generative AI has in changing the way work and learning at work might be done.
With more than 130 attendees, it was no surprise that there were a wide variety of questions that arose from their presentations. This included considerations around the need for universities to intervene and contribute to the development of professional identity when WIL was a part of the curriculum. More practical considerations around how we might support students to engage in activities that support professional identity development were also elaborated. Key questions of equity and diversity were also raised with respect to how WIL can ensure opportunities for all, especially when placement poverty has become a headline concern across Australia and beyond.
In summary it was an excellent introduction and overview to the oeuvre of three respected researchers within a field of higher education. Thanks to ACEN for the collaboration on this joint endeavour.
