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UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Psychology

Jelena B. Pavlovi

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION DISCOURSE

Doctoral Dissertation

Belgrade, 2012

ABSTRACT

Rapid technological, informational and market changes in the knowledge societies demand continuous professional education. This process can be seen as inextricably connected to the process of identity construction. In the theoretical part of this thesis conceptualizations of identity in discursive and narrative approaches in psychology are presented, together with an overview of the main technologies for identity reconstruction in the process of continuous professional education (guidance, reflective practice and coaching). The aim of the first part of the research (Study 1) was to understand implicit theories of key actors of the continuous professional education process about: (1) development of professional selves; (2) preconditions of transformative continuous professional education programs. The goal of the second part of the research (Study 2) was to design, implement and evaluate a continuous professional education program aimed at facilitating identity reconstruction. Due to the social embeddedness of the program, the main methodological framework referred to the ideas of action science and qualitative bricolage. In a more narrow sense, the analytic framework was based on a combination of grounded theory and positioning analysis. In Study 1 data was produced through focus groups and individual interviews. In Study 2 data was produced through a series of five workshops. Participants in Study 1 an Study 2 were the key actors of the continuous professional education process from the public, private and nongovernmental sectors. Participants in Study 1 were users (42 participants), trainers (16 participants) and decision makers (9 participants) in the continuous professional education. Participants in Study 2 were users of continuous professional education programs (23 participants). In Study 1 three types of implicit theories of development of professional selves were identified. Each of these types of theories represented a system of beliefs about the nature of professional self and the possibilities of its development. Implicit theories identified in Study 1 reflected the key dilemmas of the formal theories of identity. In implicit theories of key actors, polarizations between the plaster and plasticity hypotheses were reproduced. The initial hypotheses about the existence of different types of implicit theories, including the developmental theories, were confirmed in Study 1. The implicit theories identified in Study 1 have important implications for the continuous professional education process. Depending on the type of implicit theory transformative continuous professional education programs were seen as impossible, difficult or a necessary to achieve. Moreover, the hypothesis about the

possibility of identifying a set of conditions that impact transformative continuous professional education programs was also confirmed in Study 1. Implicit theories of key actors largely overlap with the explicit theories about characteristics of transformative programs. In Study 2 a program titled Developmental Laboratory was designed, implemented and evaluated. A typology of different kinds of transformative outcomes was produced, together with the typology of key mechanisms of achieving these outcomes. Outcomes identified in Developmental Laboratory included innovative moments of reconceptualization and innovative moments of performing change. Hence, the initial hypothesis was confirmed that transformative outcomes can be achieved through this program. In case of participants from the public sector, outcomes of Developmental Laboratory were somewhat specific and connected to the perception that being a change agent is impossible because of various dissatisfactory social issues. In terms of mechanisms of producing transformative effects, the main principles and types of productive interventions were identified in Study 2. The mechanism of producing change was made transparent through schemes of guidance in different phases of the program, as well as through typologies of generative and elaborative questions and experiments performed. Role play experiments on samples of critical incident situations were identified as key catalysts of change. These experiments represented the main mechanism of performing provisional professional selves. The initial hypothesis about the possibility of producing transformative effects in continuous professional education programs was thus confirmed. Finally, key barriers to producing transformative effects in continuous professional education were identified. The implications of this research are threefold: (1) unravelling implicit theories about the development of professional self contributes to the contemporary identity theory; (2) contribution to the theory and methodology of transforming self-narratives, as a tool for building change capacity among the key actors of the continuous professional education process; (3) contribution to the theory and practice of action science that transcends the boundary between basic and applied research.

Keywords: identity construction, continuous professional education, Developmental Laboratory.

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