Human Agency at Work : An Active Approach towards Expertise Development PDF
Preview Human Agency at Work : An Active Approach towards Expertise Development
Michael Goller Human Agency at Work An Active Approach towards Expertise Development Human Agency at Work Michael Goller Human Agency at Work An Active Approach towards Expertise Development With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Christian Harteis Michael Goller Paderborn, Germany Dissertation submitted and accepted at the University of Paderborn (Original title: “Agency at work: A quantitative study on the professional development of geriatric care nurses”), Germany, 2017 OnlinePlus material to this book can be available on http://www.springer.com/978-3-658-18286-1 ISBN 978-3-658-18285-4 ISBN 978-3-658-18286-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-18286-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941051 Springer VS © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper This Springer VS imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany ForElisabeth Foreword It is an important educational task to prepare subsequent generations for re- spondingtosocietaltasksandrequirementsandtoenablethemtocontribute tosocietalwelfarethroughgainfulemployment.Theparadigmofpermanently changingworkconditionsraisedthemainclaimofEuropeaneducationalpol- icy:Lifelonglearning.Howwellandhowfarindividualscancontributetoso- cietalworkingtaskssubstantiallydependsonthedevelopmentoftheircompe- tencesandcapabilities.Thesehavetobepermanentlyrefreshedandreshaped inthecontextofdailywork.Hence,workplacelearningbecameanimportant issuefororganisingworkaswellasforeducationalresearch. Individualsdifferintheirsuccessinworkplacelearning.Eventhoughthere isevidencethatoccupationalstatusisacrucialfactorinfluencinglearningop- portunities at work, workplace learning occurs at all levels of employment: blue-collar jobs, white-collar jobs, common labour, service workers, or man- agers.Educationalresearchershaveestablishedtheconceptofagencywhichis anattempttodescribeandunderstandstakeholders’achievementsregarding theaforementionedeconomicandsocialgoals.Theconceptdescribesindivid- uals’capacitytomakeintentionalchoicesandtoactonthesechoicesinways thatmakeadifferenceintheirprofessionallives.Agencycomprisesskills,at- titudes,andbeliefswhichsupportindividualstoactindependentlyinorderto transform workplace practices. Maintaining agency implies strategies of ad- vancingandrenewingskillsandcompetencies.Thisrequiresindividuals’par- ticipatinginculturesofknowledgecreationandtheexchangeofknowledge. Thehallmarksofsuchparticipationareraisingcrucialquestionsaboutwork, identifyingopportunities,andengaginginlearningactivities.Hence,agency makes a difference in the success of subsequent workplace learning and the developmentofprofessionalexpertise. Inhiscomprehensivestudy,MichaelGollerexaminestheconstructofwork agency,whichisprominentlyusedanddiscussedinresearchpublicationson VIII Foreword workplacelearning.Theconstructemergesininternationaldiscoursemainly in contexts that follow a sociocultural paradigm. Their focus is mainly on qualitative and reconstructive research approaches that aim at understand- ing specific interaction processes. They neither intend to generalise impact interrelations nor do they lead to precise differentiations of the construct, whichwouldbeunderstoodasoperationalisationinquantitativeresearchap- proaches.MichaelGollercriticisestheabstractnatureoftheresearchdiscourse onagencyandintendstofurtherdeveloptheconstructandtheresearchdis- course by developing and empirically examining a model of impact relation- ships. Therefore,MichaelGolleranalysesagencyinthecontextofdailyworking life.Heappliestheprevalentunderstandingofagencyandinterpretsemploy- eesasactiveagentsinthecontextoftheirworkenvironments,whocanshape their work circumstances through active participation, (partly) independent decision-makingand(partly)autonomousbehaviourandacting.Fromanedu- cationalperspective,agencycanbeconsideredasapreconditionforworkplace learningandprofessionaldevelopment. MichaelGollerconductsacomprehensiveliteraturereviewofeducational, psychological,andsocialsciencesresearchonworkplacelearninganddevel- ops an operationalisable construct of agency by considering human agency, on the one hand, as the capability and the tendency towards intentional de- cisionsand,ontheotherhand,identifiedactivitiesaimingatinfluencingthe work environment. Hence, agency is considered as an antecedent of agentic behaviour.Individualsact,decide,andbehavedifferently.Theoretically,each concreteindividualbehaviourattheworkplacecanbelocatedonacontinuum betweentheextremepointsofcompletelyagenticbehaviourandcompletely non-agenticbehaviour.MichaelGollerworksoutempiricalevidencethatagen- ticbehaviouratworkdependsonthreeinfluences:(a)agenticcompetence(i.e., the capability to set goals and to decide), (b) agency belief (i.e., the belief to bearagencycompetence),and(c)agencypersonalityasatrait. As a theoretical framework for professional development, Michael Goller refers to research on expertise which considers the improvement of perfor- mance through learning from experience, learning in social interactions at work,andbytheexplorationofartefactsandresourcesattheworkplace.Ob- servingagenticbehaviourrelatedtoprofessionaldevelopment,hefocuseson Foreword IX self-initiated(a)creationofrelevantexperiences,(b)helpseekingandfeedback seeking,and(c)participationinformallearningopportunitiesatwork.Addi- tionally,heconsidersautonomy,socialsupport,andtimepressureatworkas environmentalinfluencesontheprobabilityofagenticbehaviouratwork. Onthebasisofhistheoreticalanalyses,MichaelGollerraiseshisresearch questiononhowhumanagencyexplainsworkplacelearningandprofessional development.Hespecifiesthreecontext-specificsub-questions,whichaimat clarifying(a)agency’sinfluenceonagentbehaviourintheworkplace,(b)the influence of agentic behaviour on the development of professional expertise, and(c)theinfluenceofcontextfactorsonagenticbehaviourintheworkplace. Toanswerthesequestions,MichaelGollerchoosesthedomainofelderlycare nursingandconductsthreesubsequentempiricalstudies. Firstly,aninterviewstudywithnineexperiencedseniornursesinmanage- mentpositionsclarifiestherelevanceandappropriatenessofthetheoretically derivedconstructsforthepracticeofelderlycarenursing.Suchaclarification study was necessary because there are no such studies on agency in elderly carenursing.Theinterviewsfocusonthebehaviourandprofessionaldevelop- mentofelderlycareworkersandorganisationalconditionsatnursinghomes. Inessence,theinterviewsconfirmtherelevanceandappropriatenessofthese- lectedconstructsforthedomainofelderlycarenursing,andtheycontribute tofurtherclarificationsofthetheoreticalframeworkregardingcontextualin- fluences at the workplace. On this basis, Michael Goller develops a compre- hensive research model that maps impact relations between agency, agentic behaviour,andprofessionalexpertise–includingtheconsiderationofcontext factorsofworkplaces. Secondly, a pilot study in a selected nursing home examines the research design and the selected scales and measurements. Large parts of the design, scales, and measurements can be confirmed. However, it turns out that the planneduseofsocialnetworkanalysesforthemeasurementofexpertisedoes notachievesufficientacceptanceinthefield.Hence,MichaelGollerusesself- reportscalesforthemeasurementofexpertiseinthemainstudy. Thirdly, 909 elderly caregivers from 32 nursing homes participated in the mainstudy,ofwhich879personscouldbeincludedintheanalyses.Michael Gollerdecidedtouseacross-validationapproachanddividedthedatasetran- domly into a calibration (n = 432) and a validation (n = 447) sample. He k v X Foreword conducted explorative and confirmatory factor analyses with the calibration sample, in order to modify or exclude items and scales wherever necessary. MichaelGollerestimateshistheoreticalmodelonthebasisofPLS-structural equationmodellingwiththecalibrationsamplefirst,andthenwiththevalida- tionsample.Asassumed,theresultsconfirmedthatagencycanpredictagentic behaviour.Inbothsamples,thereisaconsistentimpactofagenticbehaviour onprofessionalexpertisethroughjobenrichmentandparticipationinformal learning at work. However, the context factors considered in the model re- vealed limited importance. On the basis of the theoretical model, 23% of the varianceinprofessionalexpertisecanbeexplainedinthecalibrationsample, whereasinthevalidationsample,31%ofthatvariancecanbeexplained.Hence, the explanatory power of the modelis satisfactory. Itprovides the following answerstothesub-questionsidentifiedabove:(a)Agencyprovestobeapre- dictorofagenticbehaviour,(b)twooffourfacetsofagenticbehaviourpredict thedevelopmentofprofessionalexpertise,however(c)thecontextfactorsare oflimitedimportance. Both the theoretical as well as the empirical analyses of this study are of outstanding quality. Theoretically, Michael Goller succeeds in reviewing the literature on workplace learning research and in specifying the widely used butquiteabstractunderstandingofagency.Hecomprehensivelyanalysesthe discourse about agency and he critically looks into the arguments on influ- ences,features,andimpactsofagency.Thus,thesetheoreticalanalysesmake animportantcontributiontothesystematisationofthediscourseonagency. As Michael Goller also succeeds in providing empirical evidence for the im- pactofagencyonthedevelopmentofexpertise,healsorevealstherelevance oftheconstructofagencyforeducationalresearchaswellasforeducational practiceandhumanresourcedevelopment. Probably, the most important contribution to the research discourse is to formatanunderstandingofagencythatcanbeusedforquantitativeresearch and testing of hypotheses. Whereas researchers dealing with the construct of agency usually remain within the areas of their own research paradigms, Michael Goller acknowledges the research conducted within sociocultural frameworks;hetransformstheirinsightsandalsomergesinsightfromneigh- bouringdisciplines(i.e.,psychology,socialsciences)inawaythatallowshim apreciseoperationalisationoftheconstructofagency.Hence,heistreading Foreword XI newpathsofresearch.Empirically,hisstudyconfirms,basedonabiggerdata set,whatqualitativeresearchonagencyrevealedbasedoncasestudies.Even thoughtherewillbecolleagueswhomaytendtoopposetheuseofaquantita- tiveresearchapproachforinvestigatingagency,Iamsurethatthisstudywill receivehighacknowledgementinthefield. Paderborn,February2017 ChristianHarteis
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