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Learning processes in the professional development of mental health counselors: knowledge restructuring and illness script formation

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Abstract

An important part of learning processes in the professional development of counselors is the integration of declarative knowledge and professional experience. It was investigated in-how-far mental health counselors at different levels of expertise (experts, intermediates, novices) differ in their availability of experience-based knowledge structures. Participants were prompted with 20 client problems. They had to explain those problems, the explanations were analyzed using think-aloud protocols. The results show that experts’ knowledge is organized in script-like structures that integrate declarative knowledge and professional experience and help experts in accessing relevant information about cases. Novices revealed less integrated knowledge structures. It is concluded that knowledge restructuring and illness script formation are crucial parts of the professional learning of counselors.

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Acknowledgments

Parts of this paper were written during a sabbatical stay of the second author as Guest Professor at the School of Education, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS), Austria. He is grateful to the Rector of PLUS, Professor dr Heinrich Schmidinger, and to the Director of the School of Education, Professor dr Tina Hascher, for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Didactic Research and Teacher Education, University of Augsburg, 86159, Augsburg, Germany

    Josef Strasser

  2. University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Hans Gruber

  3. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Hans Gruber

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  1. Josef Strasser
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  2. Hans Gruber
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Correspondence to Josef Strasser.

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Strasser, J., Gruber, H. Learning processes in the professional development of mental health counselors: knowledge restructuring and illness script formation. Adv in Health Sci Educ 20, 515–530 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-014-9545-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-014-9545-1

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