Introduction
Discussions about professions have taken different forms over the years. Professions are often treated to this day as homogeneous groups or classes of individuals coalescing together into practice and values (Bucher & Strauss, 1961). However, within them exist conflicts of interests and tensions from sub-specialties, professional elites and the grassroots, resulting status hierarchies and simply different views on the ideologies embedded within accepted standards of practice and ethical considerations (Saks, 2015). Within higher education institutions (HEIs), the question for a long time has been the one asked by Flexner back in 1930: “How are we to distinguish professions that belong to universities from vocations that do not belong to them?” (p. 29) When it comes to professional education another question that is tacit yet present is what are the characteristics or paradigm consensus through which professional education programs should be understood (Stark, 1998).
Specifics about the meaning of what a profession is have varied over the years to reflect different interests regarding its nature, purpose and role (Evans, 2010). At one level it can be argued that the definition and view of professions has not changed much at all from the time of Flexner (1930) who defined professions in terms of attributes and characteristics such as intellectuality (“learned professions”), attitude toward achieving results and altruism (as reflected in a code of honour). This functional approach to professions as institutions allowed/allows for a functional perspective to be applied (Parsons, 1939). Prevalence of this approach is notable in how professional associations and agencies use this type of definition. Consider Professional Australia’s current definition:
This definition embeds the following attributes identified by Jenkins (1983):… a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others (http://www.professions.com.au/about-us/what-is-a-professional).
- 1.A demonstration of a unique set of abilities that cannot be performed by ordinary individuals even at a minimal level of competency.
- 2.The basis of the profession is an intellectual underpinning derived from a systematic theory or arcane body of knowledge that must be learned in order to achieve competency.
- 3.Being client-centred and existing to satisfy a significant social need; driven by a concern for others.
- 4.Practitioners are bonded together in associations that serve to confirm the qualified and exclude the unqualified as well as provide accountability to the public at large that the members indeed are able to deliver services in a competent and confident manner.
- 5.Often accorded a monopoly of licensure or equivalent to protect the public from harm, with standards of practice put in place to guarantee competence.
- 6.Possess a regulatory code of ethical conduct that is unique and demanding specific to the care and the standards of care given to the recipient of the members’ services to which all practitioners must comply.
- 7.Assumption of responsibility for all acts within the scope of defined service(s) as well as provide the definition for autonomy of action through their defined accepted standards of practice.
- 8.Practitioners are accorded a fee or salary for services in relation to need and status.
Recent developments in defining the term profession pertain to status and the fluidity of professions moving from a semi-profession or sub-profession to full recognition as a profession (cf. Hoyle, 1982). Etzioni (1969) looked at the preparation requirements (among other attributes) and status provided to practitioners in education, nursing and social work to determine how status correlates with actual attributes, auguring interest in this line of research on professions. More recently, however, there is an interest in the ethical practice of professionals (e.g., Cheng, 2016; Evetts, 2006), professional identity (e.g., Marsico, 2012; Sterrett, 2015; Whitchurch, 2008) and the ‘becoming’ and ‘transformational’ aspects of a professional expertise in practice (e.g., Westbroek, Klaasen, Bulte, & Pilot, 2010; King, 2004; Yielder, 2004). If there is one element that comes through over time, however, is the view that professionals represent expertise (Jarvis, 1999).
In terms of professional education, the key to effective preparation ultimately rests with the value employers and other end-users place on the focus, emphasis and balance between the academic and the practical in relationship to their own expectations for skills graduates must have to garner their interest (Beaver, 1992). There is a balance different professions have to maintain between the HEI programs and end-users given that the connections between HEIs, end-users and the practitioner who now is recognised as a member of the profession are made outside HEI boundaries (Noordegraaf, 2011). Job churning and workflow concerns along with employer and employee attractiveness to each other provide exogenous variables that cannot be accounted for directly. Instead, these variables are dealt with indirectly through value inculcation within the professional education programs and by influencing the external environment through reciprocal relationships (Padró & Green, in press; Padró & Hawke, 2003). Determining quality in professional education programs has been recognised from the time of Flexner (1910) as emanating from the link between public perception, universities and the professions. This is one reason why professional associations and/or government regulatory bodies determine, enforce and monitor accepted standards of practice and often directly influence professional education programs to assure and ensure compliance for legal (duty of care) and quality determination reasons (mainly based on fitness for purpose). Both professional associations and regulatory bodies at times make the case to improve a profession’s standing in the public eye as a means of generating approval of activities and functions performed and/or increase in salaries (Hoyle, 1982). Enacted standards of practice can take on different forms, i.e., benchmarks, criteria, guidelines and standards—the difference being the degree of prescriptiveness desired from HEIs. Effectively, regulatory bodies set (or sometimes collaboratively set with professional bodies) standards or equivalents that define the basic elements of what a profession’s preparation must have for graduates to be recognised as meeting minimal expectations for becoming a professional. Most of the time these standards or equivalent are silent on specific direction regarding pedagogical techniques, the exception being when the profession views field-based preparation as a requirement as an experiential component. Under those conditions, standards or equivalents provide some form of direction relating to the approach and minimum time requirements. Otherwise, quality teaching practices are often outlined in other documents, often institutionally designed. The goals for the educator, then, are to:
- share relevant information and insights;
- engage students in disciplinary thought and reflection;
- involve them in discovery as well as listening and observing; and
- enable students to relate what is being learned in one course to that completed elsewhere ...