Clashing epistemological beliefs?

Research points at the relative importance of program coherence for initial education for the development of professional competence (e.g. Grossman et.al., 2008). It is frequently being reported that professional education and professional practice is out of step, however. The development of students’ perception of coherence between theory and practice and classroom teaching and placement is not just a question of integration and connection between the various parts of curriculum. It may also be a question of clashing epistemological beliefs between students, college teachers and placement supervisors (Joram 2007).

In this paper, students, college teachers and placement supervisors in nursing, teaching, pre-school teaching and social work are compared. Important questions are: 1) To what extent are links between class-room teaching and placement emphasized. 2) To what extent do the epistemological beliefs differ between students, college teachers and placement supervisors? Data are drawn from surveys among students as well as college teachers and placement supervisors in nursing, teaching, pre-school teaching and social work.

Preliminary results suggest that school-teacher students and nursing students experience a lower degree of coherence between theory and practice compared to the other student-groups. School-teacher students experience a lack of coherence in both classroom teaching and in the placement, whereas the nursing students’ experience of a lack of coherence is especially prominent in classroom teaching.  School-teacher students’ perception of a weak coherence corresponds to their teachers’ assessments. College teachers in the teacher education are more critical towards what is emphasised in students’ placement periods than teachers in the other programmes. Teacher education teachers also reported having difficulties in using the students’ placement-experience productively in their classroom teaching. Research based knowledge and research methodology is considered more important both by students and college teachers in nursing, but placement supervisors are relatively sceptical about what is emphasised in nursing classroom teaching.