Abstract
Innovative strategies in inquiry-based learning are recognized as improving the quality of higher education learning, but there is a need to explore whether and how these strategies promote the development of professional identity among undergraduates. In this article we describe an inquiry-based course, situated in a European context, which is designed to support students’ professional identity development through reflective practice; and we present the assessment of students’ learning outcomes. Results highlight the key roles of field research, peer groups, and a narrative approach in promoting positive student attitudes toward reflecting on their production of knowledge and in developing their professional identity.
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Notes
Reflecting differences in terminology across international boundaries, “degree course” can be understood as the North American equivalent of “program of study”. Another example of differing usage is “Faculty of…” meaning “College of …”, or in some instances “Department of …”
Here students referred to Frederick Taylor (1856–1915), one of the most influential theorists in the history of management theories. He is known as the father of scientific management. In his organizational theory he described principles for improving productivity, including the separation of planning from execution (that is of managers from workers).
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Silvia Gilardi
is Assistant Professor in Work and Organizational psychology at the University of Milan, Department of Labour and Welfare Studies. She received her master’s degree in Philosophy from the State University of Genoa and specialized degree in Work and Organizational Psychology from the Catholic University of Milan. Her research focuses on professional identity development and quality of undergraduate educational practices. She may be reached at silvia.gilardi@unimi.it.
Edoardo Lozza
is Assistant Professor of Consumer and Marketing Psychology, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Milan. He has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Università Cattolica of Milan. His research focuses on economic psychology and the professionalization of psychologists. He may be reached at edoardo.lozza@unicatt.it.
Appendix: Software-aided Content Analysis: T-lab
Appendix: Software-aided Content Analysis: T-lab
T-lab 5.2 performs a software-based quantitative content analysis, basing the analysis on two main units (context units and lexical units). Elementary contexts (EC) and variables are two types of context units, namely the subsets into which the whole corpus of text could be divided: EC are text extracts separated by punctuation that correspond to one or more statements; variables are the criteria the researcher chooses when organizing/classifying the corpus of textual data. Lexical units (LU) are words, directly considered in the graphic forms they assume in the text or ascribed to dictionary entries or to semantic classes (i.e., working = work; pneumonia = illness). This software produces matrices representing relations between the analysis units (CU and LU). In the matrices numbers indicate occurrences or co-occurrences of the considered phenomena. For further information see Lancia (2004) and http://www.t-lab.it.
Specificities analysis indicates the most typical lexical units (over-used lemmas) in a text subset and underlines semantic features that differentiate the subset of a text from the rest of the corpus. The chi-square test defines the significance of the outcome of the analysis. Outputs consist of a table reporting significant lexical units together with their corresponding chi-square values, the occurrences of lexical units in the considered variable level, and the occurrences of the same lexical units in the whole corpus of data.
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Gilardi, S., Lozza, E. Inquiry-Based Learning and Undergraduates’ Professional Identity Development: Assessment of a Field Research-Based Course. Innov High Educ 34, 245–256 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-009-9109-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-009-9109-0