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Engineers' professional learning: a practice-theory perspective

journal contribution
posted on 2015-01-01, 00:00 authored by A Reich, D Rooney, A Gardner, K Willey, David BoudDavid Boud, T Fitzgerald
With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, global and interdisciplinary contexts, different approaches to understanding how engineers practice and learn are necessary. This paper draws on recent research in the social sciences from the field of workplace learning, to suggest that a practice-theory perspective on engineers' professional learning is fruitful. It shifts the focus from the attributes of the individual learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (interactions, materiality, opportunities and challenges). Learning is thus more than the technical acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but a complex bundle of activities, that is, social, material, embodied and emerging. The paper is illustrated with examples from a research study of the learning of experienced engineers in the construction industry to demonstrate common practices – site walks and design review meetings – in which learning takes place.

History

Journal

European journal of engineering education

Volume

40

Issue

4

Pagination

366 - 379

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Location

Abingdon, Eng.

ISSN

0304-3797

eISSN

1469-5898

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2014, SEFI