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Stan Lester Developments |
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Professions
studies and projects This page has some
summaries of my research and development work with UK professions, with links
to articles, resources and reports. A separate
page covers professional competence and practising
standards. What is a profession? These thought
papers explore what is meant by professions, professionals and
professionalism. ► Professionals and professions
(exploration of meanings) ► On professions and being
professional (conceptual paper) How do professions form and how do they
regulate themselves? This report, along
with an associated article in Professions and Professionalism, draws
on my work with four small occupational groups to explore how practitioner
communities become professions and how they put in place processes and
standards for self-regulation. It
offers some learning-points for communities that are looking to
professionalise or to update their models of professionalism, for government
departments and regulators, and for academic studies of professions and
self-regulation. A key finding is that
most professions at least initially need to develop self-regulation on a
voluntary basis, without the expectation of the legal protection and
government-backed regulation that is common in fields such as medicine and
law. ► Association
and self-regulation in smaller UK professions, Avista Press (2014) ► “The
development of self-regulation in four UK professional communities”,
Professions and Professionalism 6 (1), 1-14 (2016). Professions’ entry-routes and qualifying processes A major function of
professions is to qualify, license or accredit practitioners as fit to
practise. Requirements for becoming
qualified vary between professions, as do the routes available to would-be
practitioners to reach qualified level.
I undertook some
research in 2007 to identify how qualifying-routes were evolving across a
sample of UK professions, published as a short book by the Professional
Associations Research Network (PARN) and in an article in Studies in
Higher Education. As a general
trend qualifying requirements are becoming more rigorous, while the routes
available for meeting them are increasing in flexibility. Many professions have made significant
advances in recent years in among other things the assessment of professional
practice and the widening-out of entry-routes, but there is still room for
improvement in areas such as integrating theory and practice, developing more
robust professional practising standards, making use of some of the more
recent developments in higher education and supporting entrants through
non-conventional or minority routes. Subsequent
developments, including degree apprenticeships, have tended to accelerate
these trends and create alternative routes in professions such as law, architecture and (from 2023) medicine, which have
largely relied on full-time degrees for entry. A project due to report at the
end of 2024 will update some of my work in this area and discuss the impact
of apprenticeships and similar integrated programmes. ► Integrated professional development, UVAC conceptual paper (2024) ► “Routes to
qualified status: practices and trends among UK professional bodies”, Studies in
Higher Education 34 (2), 223-236 (2009) ► Routes and
requirements for becoming professionally qualified, published
by PARN, Bristol: summary
(2007). Continuing professional development It is now generally
accepted that professional practitioners need to continue learning throughout
their careers. The idea of continuing
professional development or learning is championed by most professional
bodies, universities and colleges, but the way it is interpreted varies and
there can be an emphasis on ‘formal’ inputs and sometimes ‘measurable’
outputs, sometimes at the expense of more useful activities driven by
individuals and workplaces. Most of my
work in this area is in internal reports or embedded in papers on other
topics, but this (quite old) paper on setting up a CPD scheme in conservation
provides an overview of some of the issues: ► "Professional bodies, CPD and informal learning: the
case of conservation", Continuing Professional Development 2 (4), 110-121 (1999). My MEd dissertation was on CPD in
training and development, particularly in the form of ‘long’ programmes such
as postgraduate degrees. It is
summarised in this article: ► “Professional qualifications and continuing
development: a practitioner perspective”, Capability 1
(4), 16-22 (1995). The following is
a link to a long out-of-print seminal report on ‘informal’ CPD conducted by Jane
Gear and colleagues at the University of Hull, with a brief foreword. ► Gear, McIntosh &
Squires, Informal Learning in
the Professions (1994). Case-study: the conservation of cultural
heritage Conservation of
material heritage is an ancient profession, but until recently it has lacked
formal organisation. Between 1999 and
2002 the UK conservation community put in place some significant changes that
saw the emergence of an authoritative professional institute and a rigorous
qualifying process that was independent of entry-routes, making it accessible
to both academically-qualified conservators and those who had trained in
studios and workshops. The approaches
taken by conservation have influenced other professions particularly where
they want to create experienced practitioner entry-routes and base qualifying
on standards of practice. I have
worked with the conservation bodies since 1998 to provide some of the
intellectual leadership for these developments, and have also drawn on them
for use in other fields. The following
papers report on the first decade of development; conservation also features
in the reports referred to above and in the section on professional
competence. ► “Putting
conservation’s professional qualification in context”, The
Conservator 31, 5-15 (2008) ► "Becoming a profession:
conservation in the United Kingdom", Journal of the
Society of Archivists 23 (1), 87-94 (2002) ► “The Professional Accreditation of
Conservator-Restorers", Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education 24
(4), 411-423 (2000). External
site: Icon (The Institute of
Conservation). Case-study: architecture During the
twentieth century architecture moved to a dominant sequential entry-pattern,
with trainee architects completing a full-time bachelor’s degree (Part 1), spending
a year in practice, returning to university for a two-year master’s degree
(Part 2), then working for two or more years while taking a part-time course
and completing a final assessment (Part 3).
Architecture long continued to define its requirements in terms of
these three ‘parts’, limiting flexibility.
Changes have recently been put in place to the professional standards
and qualifying criteria, providing more flexibility particularly for entrants
without an architecture first degree.
I worked with ARB on standards and criteria between 2017 and 2022, and
my assessment of the context, issues and ways forward are in the following
article: ► “Architecture in
the UK: a study in professional
entry-routes and entry-gates”, Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning 12 (1), 1-12 (2022). External site: Architects Registration Board. Case-study: family mediation Family mediation
emerged in the 1970s largely in response to changes in UK divorce laws that
allowed for negotiated settlements. By
the 1990s various associations for mediators existed, in addition to those
intended primarily for lawyers but also catering for lawyer-mediators. In 2013 a project was initiated by the
Family Mediation Council, funded by the Department for Justice and with me as
consultant, designed to revise and strengthen the systems and procedures used
for what collectively might be called self-regulation – how family mediators
are trained and approved, rules for admitting currently-qualified
practitioners and those from other jurisdictions, the regulations for
maintaining approval (including ongoing professional development), and the
rules for responding to complaints and removing defaulting
practitioners. ► “Professional
organisation and self-regulation in family mediation”, Family Law (2014) External site: Family Mediation Council. New technology and professions Various predictions
have been made about the pending effect of new technology on professional
work. This paper in Professions and
Professionalism gives my take on this area and why I think some
predictions are wide of the mark. I
haven’t yet seen anything in subsequent ‘AI’ developments that make me want
to revise my analysis, and if anything they illustrate both for the potential
to use technology in new ways to aid professional work and the need for
strong human oversight of analyses and decisions made by machines. ► “New
technology and professional work”, Professions and Professionalism (2020) ©
Stan Lester 2023 |
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