Enhancing and Hindering Factors Affecting the Integration of a Philosophy of Profession
ENHANCING AND HINDERING FACTORS AFFECTING THE INTEGRATION OF A PHILOSOPHY OF PROFESSION IN HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULA
Zydziunaite, Vilma; Katiliute, Egle
Institute of Educational Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University College Dublin, 7-10 September 2005
ABSTRACT. The research study focuses on answers to the following questions of which consists the research problem: ‘What are enhancing and hindering factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula? What are enhancing and hindering factors underlying students’ understanding about a philosophy of their profession as expressed in what is experienced as meaningful in higher education? ‘ The research aim is ‘to uncover and explore the enhancing and hindering factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula’. The data were collected by written essays and the method of qualitative content analysis was chosen to analyze the research data. Sample consisted of 150 students of higher education (nursing, kinesitherapy and social pedagogy). Implications of research study are those: 1) Students’ understanding about professional philosophy is aim – and competence – oriented that includes connections to the self, practice and unification of personal and practical levels and as the main factors there were accentuated the application of knowledge, realization of ethical behavior, self – empowerment, self – development and realization of competence. 2) Enhancing and hindering factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula and underlying students’ understanding about a philosophy of their profession as expressed in what is experienced as meaningful in higher education in common are divided into three levels (external, internal and intermediate) and include orientations (every orientation includes not the same levels and with various their contents) to students personality (self), colleagues students, lecturers, practitioners, educational institution, practical institution, profession, student’s family, client and client’s family.
Keywords: philosophy, profession, higher education, curricula
INTRODUCTION
Higher education for the professions and higher education curricula, which integrates a philosophy of profession, could be seem to be far removed from the core of liberal higher education (Paisey & Paisey, 2004). The process of learning characterizes the higher education, rather than simply the knowledge learned and competences acquired. Knowledge and competences as this study had illuminated, is the main concern of higher education in the three professions considered in this research. While knowledge and competences is clearly important in a professional context, it is no longer possible to learn ‘all’ about the discipline and acquire ‘all’ competences as a constant standard related to concrete profession; so it is necessary for students to understand the philosophy of their profession that will enable them to reflect their learning and to update their knowledge and competences after they leave university or college. Curriculum development within professional disciplines faces a number of pressures: a broad curriculum is considered to be important in producing a rounded graduate (Dean, 1988), and there are requirements for knowledge to be adequate and relevant and for research to be applicable, i.e. practical (Hammersley, 1992). But in higher education students are encouraged to evaluate, criticize and engage in their studies with detachment and this not always is connected to practical contexts. Vocationalism has therefore coexisted with liberalism within the higher education sector since earliest times that there is no single concept of higher education (Paisey & Paisey, 2004).
Integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula is a path that is worth pursuing for it leads in the right direction: towards an education where students learn to understand the meaning of their experiences, towards a profession that values its practical expertise, towards a research tradition that had a language, which adequately expresses the work and finally towards a discipline whose knowledge not only embedded in concrete practice but can be expressed in new and transforming ways (Boud, Cohen, & Walker, 1993; Fitzgerald, 1993).
Research problem. The research emphasizes on issues that include these research questions: What are enhancing and hindering factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula? What are enhancing and hindering factors underlying students’ understanding about a philosophy of their profession as expressed in what is experienced as meaningful in higher education?
Research aim. To uncover and explore the enhancing and hindering factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in higher education curricula.
1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. A philosophy of profession: implications for higher education
The purpose of higher education, according to Raya (1990), is to cultivate the attitudes and the traits of character, which symbolize the educated mind and this is the responsibility of all teachers of all subjects. Any subject can be taught creatively, which will increase the student’s respect for truth and for the worth and the rights of other persons, his / her appreciation of own worth, his / her awareness of ignorance and smallness within the vast universe, love of wisdom and desire to learn, his / her philosophical outlook about man’s position and destination in the world, and his / her desire for an inquiring mind in order to discover higher perspectives of life (Williams, 1968, in Raya, 1990, p. 505). Also the aims of the contemporary higher education include excellence in both teaching and research (Tabak, Adi & Eherenfeld, 2003).
The student as a ‘receiver’ of higher education is indivisible and unrepeatable human being and is an axiological entity, thus, he / she cannot transcend personal inadequacy and natural weaknesses to reach higher levels of spiritual life and creation only by knowledge; he / she cannot become really educated and integrated if his / her inner tendencies and predispositions are not fulfilled by living and actualizing the fundamental values, properly balanced and ordered (Raya, 1990). Indeed, education does not achieve its purpose as a human development facilitator by merely transmitting cognitive information: education should provide each student with opportunities, which broaden and deepen a developing philosophy of life where one of parts is profession, which also is based on a certain philosophy. And this is, according to Vitkauskaite (2001), a special form of consciousness and world cognition, which unifies the knowledge about essential principles of human existence into common features that are connected to nature, society and spiritual life; and it is knowledge, values, or epistemology and axiology that are never separable behaviorally, and only – conceptually.
In the context of higher education curriculum here is important to focus on connection between three systems: 1) activity that includes mono– and multidisciplinary as well as multiprofessional complexes, which are realized in various contexts and situations; 2) vocational education and training as a part of higher education content and one of the core aims; 3) student’s (specialist who is educated and trained in system of higher education) personality (Zydziunaite, 2003). Thus it is clear that curriculum development includes the four fundamental questions (WHO, 2001): What are the essential study aims? What experience should be acquired in order to achieve the foresighted aims? How could be organized the realization of those experiences effectively? How to establish that those study aims are achieved? And these aims should not be related only to acquirement of knowledge, competencies and skills but also to personal establishment and comprehension of philosophy of a chosen profession and that should be realized in a study process of higher education.
It is common to point out that the word ‘profession’ invokes first and foremost a practical or instrumental side (Zydziunaite, 2003). This is not to deny that theorizing about profession occurs but any professional theory, which is developed, will be evaluated in terms of its implications for specific practice. It follows from these points that philosophy of profession must be philosophy of practice discipline(s) (Edwards, 1996).
A term ‘philosophy of profession’ is used rarely and more often researchers relate the word ‘philosophy’ to concrete professional area and use the unified term, e.g. ‘philosophy of nursing’ (Raya, 1990; Edwards, 1996), ‘philosophy of socioeducational or social professions’ (Vitkauskaite, 2001; Morkuniene, 2002), etc. Thus I will present below the essential characteristics of philosophies that are related to concrete professional areas such as nursing and socioeducation in order to illuminate the main elements of which consists a philosophy of profession in common and in respect to context of higher education.
Schrock (1981, in Edwards, 1996) points out that philosophy of nursing [as a profession] is often mistakenly construed to refer to an ideology of nursing, which is treated as a set of unexamined presuppositions that influence attitudes and practices. According to Salsberry (1994), a philosophy of nursing involves three components: First, ontology, which informs us what fundamental entities are that exist within the domain of nursing. Second, an epistemology, which involves claims about how the basic phenomena can be known. Third, an ethics that are the statements about what one values. It means that the first is the kind of analysis, which comprises the underlaborer view, the second is the concern with particular problems traditionally regarded as philosophical problems (e.g., epistemology), and the third involves the development of a criterion for the identification of philosophical questions.
Edwards (1996) notes that the ontological component of a philosophy of nursing must include human being, or persons and any of such components must take into account the traditional philosophical problems of personal identity and of relationship between the mind and the body.
Raya (1990) focuses on freedom and values as inseparable from nursing philosophy and claims that those are interdependent concepts. It means that concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘values’ cannot live separately: without values human have no direction for; values, which thrill the emotions and motivate human will, act upon them not as powers of compulsion but as target pointers; values do not determine the human personality, rather it is the free acceptance of the deontological calls of values, which determine it; actualization of values means self – actualization and self – formation of a man (ibid). Thus nursing philosophy as a philosophy of a profession can serve as a reservoir of values. The nature of the nursing profession makes it indispensable that certain values be taught and experienced by nursing students along with and together with their scientific curriculum core. Styles (1982, in Raya, 1990) states that nursing as an occupational force for social good and as a humanistic field provides a value orientation. As a consequence the higher education institutions where nursing studies are realized should socialize students to the norms, values and roles of the profession along with providing them with the essential knowledge and skills. Thus the nursing curriculum aim should strive to transmit the caring science, art and spirit of nursing as profession to the students. The primacy of caring must be central, prevailing, inspiring, pacing and imbue the nursing curriculum, nursing practice, nursing research and nursing visions of the future. Thus what about urgent values education in nursing? Ketefian (1983) investigate the approaches to values education, specifically the development of moral reasoning as a tool to measure moral behavior. The research found out that the type of educational preparation is an important and crucial variable in relation to the mentioned development: when moral reasoning is enhanced by systematic educational strategies, a person is more likely to behave adequately in ethical conflicts. Such ideas are inseparable from philosophy of study process in higher education, and which is connected to philosophy of the profession too (Zydziunaite, 2003).
McDonald and McIntyre (2002) highlight a moral challenge that irises in providing knowledge and educating. They observe the important fact that all knowledge is contextual, i.e. knowledge based on certain assumptions and obtained through specific courses. Every area of knowledge has its authoritative sources, ideological approach and specific point of view. For example, nursing educators meet students who are in the intersection of clinical work, theory and research and they need to make important decisions regarding the knowledge and underlying assumptions they will teach and, the language they will use (Tabak, Adi & Eherenfeld, 2003). Also here is of great importance the educational model that is used, because of its inadequacy with the philosophy of a profession and that may detach the students from the core of professional area. E.g., while there is significant discussion of the shift from a positivist to a postmodern theoretical paradigm is the disciplines of philosophy, sociology and education, nursing still clings to positivist teaching techniques adopted from the educational model of medicine where objective knowledge is deemed sacred (Whall & Hicks, 2002). While this educational model limits critical thinking, teaching methods that consider the connections between individuals and their environments show knowledge as socially situated. Such methods can teach nursing students to see patients as individuals who, like themselves, are influenced by specific economic and social circumstances (McDonald & McIntyre, 2002).
Morkuniene (2002) accentuates that the basis of socioeducational professional philosophy first and foremost is a social philosophy, which could be applied as methodological instrument and which is connected to humanistic philosophy and is incorporated in the aim of socioeducational professional activities (e.g., ‘I’ development, values of freedom, justice, equality, democracy etc.). The researcher (ibid.) extracts the main ideas in such philosophical standpoint: values are human as a personality and human existence; human being who is able to realize the self – creation and grounds his / her activities by unity of mind and potentials of creativity, i.e. ability to realize self – development; rights and freedom of every individual as natural conditions for functioning of civic society; expansion of human being potential. From those aspects is clear that here is important principle of individuality (Lukoseviciene, 1996; Erler, 2000; Kvieskiene, 2003) according which should be chosen the educational techniques. It influence the development of creativity, which is a ‘source’ of work activity and self – activity (i.e. being active). Activity of an individual is essential feature of his / her life position and the form of its expression (Vaitkevicius, 1995).
In philosophical basics of socioeducational activity Septenko & Voronina (2001) accentuates the potential of every individual that could be applied in activity as Heidegger (in Girnius, 2002) accentuates that potential of a human being is his / her way of life and an individual analyzes external and internal potential in order to know the limits and possibilities of personal openness and expression. According to Allport (1998), every individual has personal limits of development but self – perception, education and efforts, could broaden those. Explaining this formation in context of education it means that in order to broaden personal limits the students need the external help, i.e. convenient environment and conditions, which could be called as external possibilities and that help to ‘open’ and express the internal potential. As Baranova (2002) says, it means the realization of the aim of humanistic philosophy, which is connected to establishment of conditions that stipulate the expression of individual potential of human being. From this context emerges that personality is an individual who acts positively and knows what he / she wants (Morkuniene, 2002) and this is related to social philosophy, which accentuates that the personality is valued according to his / her behavior. Behavior reflects personal values, self – image, relationships with others, i.e. internal world of the personality. According to Kierkegaard (in Andrijauskas, 2004), the personality is nothing before he / she starts to choose. Baranova (2002) adds, if the person does not choose, then others make decisions instead of him / her and the person ‘loses’ the self. The person chooses the self through behavior and decisions: what is chosen, that is a distinctiveness and specific way of existence; thus the person through the choice reflects on the self, personal actions and it means that he / she establishes the personal relationship with the situation (Frankl, 1997). Summarizing could be noted that through the free choice of personal ways of existence the human being is responsible for self – creation.
From the presented above material it is clear that the core ‘concepts’ of a philosophy of profession that are related to higher education, i.e. studies of the profession these are learning, teaching, competence (knowledge, skills, behavior), relationships, communication, self - knowing and self – creation / creativity, self – activity (being active), self – development, values, teaching, external and internal factors / environment, experience, comprehension / understanding and feelings. Those could be connected to external, intermediate and internal levels in the context of higher education process. Thus if we agree that philosophy of profession may consists of three components (according to Salsberry, 1994), then the model, which could identify factors (e.g., enhancing or hindering) of integration of a philosophy of profession within the higher education curriculum also may consist of three components that are the precondition of such integration (see Figure 1):
Figure 1. Model: components of integration of a philosophy of profession into higher education curriculum (Zydziunaite, 2005)
2. THE STUDY
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Data collection. Written essays consisted of two questions ‘What are factors affecting the integration of a philosophy of profession in your educational curricula? What are meaningful factors that you experienced, which underlying your understanding about a philosophy of [x] profession in your studies?’ Students were asked to answer these questions by narrating and reflecting. Reflection as a research methodology in such research contexts aspect is stipulated by Alvesson & Skoldberg (2000).
2.1.2. Data analysis. Written essays were analyzed applying the qualitative content analysis. Qualitative content analysis in education research has been applied to a variety of data and to various depths of interpretation (e.g., O’Brien et al, 1997; Latter et al, 2000; Berg & Welander Hansson, 2000, etc.). The process of qualitative content analysis consists of the following steps (according to Graneheim & Lundman, 2004): 1) the researcher reads the written essay texts several times to obtain a sense of the whole; 2) the text about the specific research area (that is limited by research questions) is extracted and brought together into one text, which constitutes the unit of analysis; 3) the text is divided into meaning units that are condensed; 4) the condensed meaning units are abstracted and labeled with a code; 5) the whole context is considered when condensing and labeling meaning units with codes; 6) the various codes are compared based on differences and similarities and are sorted into subcategories and categories, which constitute the manifest content.