UFHRD Workshop University of Wolverhampton Oct 2018 Developing - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Scholarly Practitioner Research UFHRD Workshop University of Wolverhampton Oct 2018 Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Anglia Ruskin University

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Aim of Session To explore evolving discourse around the value of professional learners conducting scholarly practitioner research Objectives 1 To identify outcomes of study engaging learners completing management reports 2 To develop thoughts around how this might contribute towards impactful practitioners

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Background This workshop follows a study presented in Newcastle at UFHRD conference which set out to explore the views of professional learners who were undertaking projects by either dissertation or masters to satisfy CIPD’s historical requirements for Investigating a Business Issue. This raised a number of issues which this workshop hopes to allow us to think about.

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay As a professional body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have historically employed a requirement of all their students studying towards Chartered Membership that they should undertake an investigation into a business issue from an HR perspective in order to complete their professional education. This study explores the views of learners from 2017-2018 as reported in UFHRD 2018 conference paper.

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Peter Cheese, in the CIPD (2017) Strengths-based performance conversations: an organisational field trial, Research report declared that ‘we have called out that HR and people development should be principles led, evidence based, and outcomes driven . This means HR professionals drawing on evidence that is both relevant and high quality to inform their practices. The profession needs more robust trials… to develop our knowledge of where people management policies and processes are effective in achieving the outcomes intended, and where they are not.’

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay There has remained a tension that many of these projects are awarded certification through university Masters projects as opposed to CIPD MRR Many academics are inspired to seek journal articles (which do not centre upon practice- oriented knowledge) relative to REF outcomes

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay any notion of becoming a ‘scholarly practitioner’ apparently competes for space within the educational system for masters- level students researching complex practice based problems This is particularly where learners may perceive their primary aim lies with the necessity to gain practitioner recognition

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay research from scholarly practitioners needs to be disseminated to practitioners, as well as within publications read by scholars. Learners need not solely to improve their practice but contribute to scholarship. Yet the reasons for joining a masters level course or the advanced level CIPD awards have often not been motivated by such progression. Most CIPD students are motivated often by their career advancement

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay This study explores reflections from students working towards their projects is explored from the perspective of whether creative integration of thinking and doing, theory and practice occurs in relation with the practice, the academic and the practitioner or demands a more longitudinal reflection. This current study seeks to consider tensions for masters students researching complex practice based problems

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay there remains also some competition of focus, for professional practitioner Masters students between their workplace environment, but is backfooted by the value that employers place upon their needs for support, relative to any collaborative and relational learning students undertake both as scholars and practitioners

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay There is a suggestion of motivations towards the outcomes of students’ investigations towards ‘scholarly conversations’ might be produced by a mix between practitioner led research student groups and cohorts who have more scholarly aspiration (MacGregor and Fellabaum, 2016)

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay The study included focus groups from a mix of 30 students from the two deliveries who had attended research methods sessions together in preparation for their investigations either: by management report (15 masters level credits) or major project research dissertation (30 masters level credits).

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Level of commitment to and from employer impacting motivation to undertake research The majority of focus groups (5 out of 6) identified that there was a conflict of interest between the student’s research activities and sponsoring employer = (contradictory?) functionalism

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Professional Body approach All focus groups also noted that they felt the professional membership requirements were rigid and limited the opportunities for creativity or diversity/flexibility in their research approaches. ‘evidence based’ outputs eg a persuasive business case, an implementation plan alongside consideration of financial implications limited scope

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay 5 out of 6 focus groups claimed the professional body faced the greatest criticism suggesting they felt the educational institution exposed them to other approaches towards their research studies eg methodologies but their choices relative to their workplace/professional careers were limited.

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Positioning of Workplace Expectations… The remaining groups (4 out of 6) noted that research in the workplace is not conducted in the same manner to academic approach/scholarly protocols. • does the value attributed to the scholarly conversation, or the facilitation of approaches such as Freire’s dialogical pedagogy (1970, 1972) towards the examination of practice needs raising?

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Professional education? each HEI delivering their awards is subject to professional body approval and quality review, the nature of the delivery by any individual HEI might vary the experience of the learners in their relationship with the professional body’s award and research project. Can this reflect an opportunity for collaboration between the professional body and HEIs to determine how the concept of impactful practitioners might be developed…

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay How can we open the debate? Over to you… What can we learn from each other and in turn progress this through UFHRD? What are the key opportunities in terms of progressing research impact?

Developing impactful Practitioners through professional education Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay Concluding thoughts? Many thanks Don’t hesitate to contact: Diane.keeble-allen@Anglia.ac.uk