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Negative expertise: comparing differently tenured elder care nurses' negative knowledge

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An Erratum to this article was published on 10 March 2011

Abstract

Negative expertise is conceptualised as the professional's ability to avoid errors during practice due to certain cognitive agencies. In this study, negative knowledge (i.e. knowledge about what is wrong in a certain context and situation) is conceptualised as one such agency. This study compares and investigates the negative knowledge of elder care nurses at three different levels of professional experience. Thereby, various forms of negative knowledge—declarative, procedural, self-reflective and vicarious—are investigated. Moreover, the specificity of negative knowledge is compared across different levels of professional experience. Verbal data was collected from a prompting task study of 37 elder care nurses. These were prompted 20 diagnoses of varying typicality for the professional field. The nurses were asked what was critical to pay attention to and what ought to be avoided in case of these diagnoses. The study's results reveal a significant superiority of highly tenured elder care nurses in vicarious negative knowledge, as well as in highly specified negative knowledge. Procedural and procedural negative knowledge (PNK)—which are the most important facets in quantitative terms—show an approximately parallel developmental pattern among the different groups. For declarative knowledge, a U-shaped intermediate effect was discovered. It is concluded that PNK has the most immediate error-preventive function. With regards to future research, the great specificity of highly tenured elder care nurses' negative knowledge discovered in this study is discussed here as one possible explanation as to why they are able to intentionally avoid errors (i.e. their negative expertise).

Résumé

L'expertise négative est conceptualisée en tant que la capacité professionnelle à éviter les erreurs lors de la pratique dues à certains agents cognitifs. Dans cette étude, les connaissances négatives (c.-à-d. les connaissances relatives à ce qui est erroné dans un contexte ou une situation donné) sont conceptualisées en tant qu'agent de ce type. Cette étude compare et étudie les connaissances négatives des infirmières prodiguant des soins aux personnes âgées à trois stades d'expérience professionnelle différents. Nous étudions donc plusieurs formes de connaissances négatives, à savoir les connaissances déclaratives, procédurales, auto-réflectives et vicariantes. De plus, la spécificité des connaissances négatives est comparée en fonction des différents niveaux d'expérience. Des données verbales ont été collectées à partir d'une étude de tâches proposées à 37 infirmières soignant des personnes âgées. On leur a proposé 20 diagnostics de typicalité variable dans leur domaine professionnel. Il a été demandé aux infirmières ce qu'il était crucial de surveiller avec attention et ce qui devait être évité dans le cas de ces diagnostics. Les résultats de cette étude révèlent une supériorité importante des infirmières soignant des personnes âgées les plus gradées en matière de connaissances négatives vicariantes ainsi qu'en ce qui concerne les connaissances négatives très spécifiques. Les connaissances procédurales et les connaissances négatives procédurales, qui sont les facettes les plus importantes en termes de quantité, montrent un schéma de développement approximativement parallèle entre les différents groupes. Pour les connaissances déclaratives, un effet intermédiaire en forme de U a été constaté. On en arrive à la conclusion que les connaissances négatives procédurales possèdent la fonction de prévention des erreurs la plus immédiate. En ce qui concerne la recherche future, la grande spécificité des connaissances négatives des infirmières soignant des personnes âgées les plus gradées révélées dans cette étude est exposée ici comme étant une explication possible de la raison pour laquelle elles sont capables d'éviter intentionnellement des erreurs (c.-à-d. leur expertise négative).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), grant Gr 1384/11-2, awarded to Hans Gruber and Helmut Heid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Susanne Klatten-Stiftungslehrstuhl für Empirische Bildungsforschung, School of Education, Technische Universität München, Schellingstraße 33, 80799, Munich, Germany

    Martin Gartmeier

  2. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Erno Lehtinen

  3. University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Hans Gruber & Helmut Heid

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  1. Martin Gartmeier
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  2. Erno Lehtinen
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  3. Hans Gruber
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  4. Helmut Heid
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Correspondence to Martin Gartmeier.

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Martin Gartmeier. TUM School of Education, Susanne Klatten-Stiftungslehrstuhl für Empirische Bildungsforschung, c/o Martin Gartmeier TU München, Schellingstraße 33, 80799 München. E-mail: martin.gartmeier@tum.de; Web site: http://www.ebf.edu.tum.de/

Current themes of research:

Workplace learning. Learning from errors and negative knowledge. Professional communication.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Gartmeier, M., Bauer, J., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2010). Workplace errors and negative knowledge in elder care nursing. Human Resource Development International, 13, 5–25.

Gartmeier, M., Kipfmüller, S., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2009). Fehlerorientierung und Eigeninitiative im Bankensektor [Error orientation and personal initiative in the banking sector]. Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 53, 149–162.

Gartmeier, M., Bauer, J., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2008). Negative knowledge: Understanding professional learning and expertise. Vocations and Learning, 2, 87–103.

Erno Lehtinen. University of Turku, Center for Learning Research, 20014 Turun yliopisto, Finland. E-mail: erno.lehtinen@utu.de; Web site: http://users.utu.fi/ernoleh/

Current themes of research:

Research on learning environments and professional networks. Educational technology. Expertise development.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Murtonen, M., Olkinuora, E., Palonen, T., Hakkarainen, K., and Lehtinen, E. (2008). Motivational orientation to work in different types of organizations. International Journal of Educational Research, 47(4), 213–222.

Lehtinen, E. (2008). Bridging the individual and social in workplace learning and motivation. International Journal of Educational Research, 47(4), 261–263.

Gruber, H., Lehtinen, E., Palonen, T., & Degner, S. (2008). Persons in the shadow: Assessing the social context of high abilities. Psychology Science Quarterly, 50(2), 237–258.

Hannula, M.M., & Lehtinen, E. (2005). Spontaneous focusing on numerosity and mathematical skills of young children. Learning and Instruction, 15(3), 237–256

Hans Gruber. University of Regensburg, Institute of Educational Research, Unit Prof. Dr. H. Gruber, 93040 Regensburg, Germany. E-mail: Hans.Gruber(@)paedagogik.uni-regensburg.de; Web site: http://www-campus.uni-r.de/edu3/

Current themes of research:

Professional learning. Expertise. Negative knowledge. Network analysis. Higher education.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Gegenfurtner, A., Veermans, K., Festner, D., & Gruber, H. (2009). Motivation to transfer training: An integrative literature review. Human Resource Development Review, 8, 403–423.

Gruber, H., Jansen, P., Marienhagen, J., & Altenmüller, E. (2010). Adaptations during the acquisition of expertise. Talent Development and Excellence, 2, 3–15.

Harteis, C., Bauer, J., & Gruber, H. (2008). The culture of learning from mistakes: How employees handle mistakes in everyday work. International Journal of Educational Research, 47, 223–231.

Rupprecht, M., Strasser, J., Gruber, H., & Harteis, C. (2010). Expertise of team leaders in analysing team conflicts. Vocations and Learning: Studies in Vocational and Professional Learning, 3, 39–54.

Helmut Heid. University of Regensburg, Institute for Educational Research, c/o Prof. em. Dr. Helmut Heid, 93040 Regensburg, Germany. E-mail: Helmut.Heid@paedagogik.uni-regensburg.de; Web site: http://www-campus.uni-r.de/edu3/

Current themes of research:

Educational equity. Mutual relationships between the educational and employment system. Philosophy of educational science. Error culture.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Harteis, C., Bauer, J., & Heid, H. (2006). Der Umgang mit Fehlern als Merkmal betrieblicher Fehlerkultur und Voraussetzung für Professional Learning. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Bildungswissenschaften, 28, 111–129.

Heid, H., Gruber, H. (2005). Personnel and organisational development from an economic and an educational perspective. In: Gruber, H. (Ed.), Bridging individual, organisational, and cultural aspects of professional learning. Regensburg: Roderer.

Heid, H. (2005). Übertragung von Verantwortung—die Verwandlung fremdbestimmten Sollens in selbstbestimmtes Wollen. In: M. Eigenstetter & M. Hammerl (Eds.), Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik—ein Widerspruch in sich? (pp. 163–182). Kröning: Asanger.

Heid, H. (2004). The domestication of critique: Problems of justifying the critical in the context of educationally relevant thought and action. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38(3), 323–339.

Bauer, J., Festner, D., Gruber, H., Harteis, C. & Heid, H. (2004). The effects of epistemological beliefs on workplace learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 16, 284–292.

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10212-011-0057-6

Appendix

Appendix

Categorical scheme developed for analysing the verbal data (with categories of negative knowledge printed in italics):

  • Declarative knowledge:

    • Enabling conditions, causes of certain diagnoses

    • Prevalence (frequency of occurrence)

    • Symptoms, appearance and course of a diagnosis

    • Classification and differential diagnosis

    • DNK (common misconceptions with regards to certain diagnosis; non-similarity of diagnoses)

  • Procedural knowledge:

    • General, strategic, goal-related

    • Concrete measures and actions

    • Contextual procedural knowledge (including other professions, modifying actions due to special circumstances)

    • PNK (to know what not to do; to know about what must not be omitted; to know which situations should be avoided)

  • Self-reflective knowledge:

    • Personal role, own competence

    • Elaborating own experiences and opinions

    • SRNK (to know about limitations of one's own influence; to know about limitations of one's own knowledge or skills)

  • Vicarious and episodic knowledge:

    • Individuality, biography or special needs of certain (groups of) residents

    • Generalised episode, example

    • Distinct episode

    • VNK (to know what somebody is not able to; to know what somebody does not recognise or understand)

  • Specificity of negative knowledge:

    • Global reference

    • Reference to a special diagnosis

    • More specific reference

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Gartmeier, M., Lehtinen, E., Gruber, H. et al. Negative expertise: comparing differently tenured elder care nurses' negative knowledge. Eur J Psychol Educ 26, 273–300 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-010-0042-5

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