Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2008.

The purpose of the study was to describe the nature of the architectural apprenticeship experience from a curricular, instructional, social, and transformative perspective to help interns move from novice status to entry-level expertise in architectural practice. The study examined the apprenticeship experience from a holistic perspective to develop a better understanding of the architectural internship program. To meet the study purpose and inquiry, a case study research design was used to explore and describe the nature of the apprenticeship experience from the perspectives of three stakeholder groups: the interns, the mentors, and the members of the community of practice (CoP). Overall, as evidenced by the perspectives of the Interns, the Firm serving as the case study emphasized all-aspects of architectural practice as the basis for the development of a holistic apprenticeship experience. That is, the Interns participated in the whole of the Firm’s architectural practice. Additionally, the Firm used work- and project-based learning as the vehicle for the apprenticeship curriculum and instruction. As a result, the Interns were grounded in authentic learning and work contexts requiring the application of architectural knowledge and skills. Further, because of the all-accepts of architectural practice and the grounding of work- based and project-based learning, the interns purposefully progressed in expertise through increased participation in architectural projects requiring enhanced demands in terms of knowledge and skills. Study findings highlighted the role of a holistic approach to the apprenticeship experience, the value of immersion in all aspects of architectural practice, and the firm’s commitment to be engaged in a process of shared transformation. As such, related findings should be helpful in the conceptualization and implementation of the architectural apprenticeship experience in the field.

This study presents the outcomes of an exploration of the ways in which instrumental music teachers (IMTs) engaged to teach in UK university departments experience their work and interpret their role. It provides the basis for realistic steps for enriching their contribution to and relationship with the department in which they are situated. The area of activity was examined through a qualitative research approach within a single case study design that highlights the particularities and complexities of the case and of its context. It progressed through semi-structured interviews, document review, job-shadowing and a research diary that engaged participants in an iterative process aimed at generating rich descriptions of the situation and increasing the veracity of its subsequent interpretation. The findings echo the isolated location found in earlier studies of IMTs in HE (Burwell, 2005; Haddon, 2009; Purser, 2005, Young et al, 2003) but note that they did not display the secretive or isolationist tendencies previously espoused. Instead there was a narrative of neglect and exclusion by the employer that contributed to a low sense of entitlement from these employees who occupy a peripheral and static position at the margins of departmental operations. It concludes that IMTs do not form a convenient organisational sub-unit (Weick and Orton, 1990) or a community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) that would respond in a uniform fashion. Instead, they experience their engagement with the university in an individual manner framed by their personal and professional environment or umwelt (Uexküll, 1985) and interpreted according to their particular interests, needs and priorities. Finally it suggests that the employing department must recognise this diversity and facilitate greater participation of its IMTs through the creation of permeable boundaries that permit but do not require involvement in curriculum design and assessment, teaching innovations and research into instrumental pedagogy.

This research report describes the learning histories of computer assistants and expert assessment practice. This takes place in a workplace where computer training, specifically the fixing of hardware (CPU) occurs. It is hoped that the evidence collected might contribute towards the recognition and understanding of tacit assessment on the National Qualifications Framework, (NQF). In uncovering these learning histories and expert assessment practices, a component of ethnography which involves case history interviews and discussions was used. The theoretical framework used was situated learning theory and the legitimate peripheral participation of the computer assistants. This framework is itself embedded in the theory of constructivism. Case histories used as a component of ethnography is part of a bigger ethnographic project developed by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). This particular study will contribute along with other projects in the University of Witwatersrand research group, to make up a full ethnographic account of learning and assessment in the workplace.

In a society where knowledge is more and more valuable, every moment that knowledge can be shared between colleagues is of great importance. According to our earlier personal experiences, we thought that organizations prioritised explicit knowledge and not tacit knowledge.  To contribute to knowledge on the subject we choose to do a study where we focused on the experiences of coworkers that works in shops. The purpose of the study then became: “to investigate how tacit knowledge is made use of in shops from the perspective of coworkers”. With the purpose in mind, we created two questions: “How does the coworkers of shops perceive that tacit knowledge occurs on their workplace?” and “how does coworkers perceive that they share their tacit knowledge”?  The study is made with a qualitative approach the collection of data has been made through seven semistructured interviews with coworkers. When we analyzed the empiric material, we’ve analyzed it through the theory of situated learning by Lave and Wenger that is included in the sociocultural perspective. Some things that the result showed according to our interpretation was observation and social interactions with other colleagues is the most common way that tacit knowledge can be shared through on the respondent’s workplaces, that the organizations do have a plan to make use of the explicit knowledge in greater extent than tacit knowledge, the respondents views trust as an important factor when it comes to sharing their tacit knowledge. / I ett samhälle där kunskap blir mer och mer värdefullt är vartenda tillfälle där kunskap kan delas mellan kollegor av stor vikt. Våra personliga uppfattningar är att organisationer prioriterar formell kunskap som kan förmedlas i ord och skrift och inte den tysta kunskapen.  För att bidra med kunskap i ämnet valde vi att göra en studie där vi fokuserar på medarbetare som arbetar i butik för att ta reda på deras uppfattningar. Syftet blev då: “att undersöka hur tyst kunskap tas tillvara på inom detaljhandeln utifrån medarbetares perspektiv”. Utifrån syftet skapade vi de två frågeställningarna: ”Hur uppfattar butiksmedarbetare att tyst kunskap förekommer på deras arbetsplats?” och ”Hur upplever medarbetare att de delar sin tysta kunskap?  Studien har gjorts med kvalitativ ansats och datainsamlingen har skett genom sju stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med medarbetare. När vi analyserat det empiriska materialet har vi gjort det ur teorin situerat lärande av Lave och Wenger som ingår i det sociokulturella perspektivet. Några saker som resultatet visar enligt vår tolkning är att: observation och socialt samspel med andra kollegor är de vanligaste sätten som tyst kunskap delas på respondenternas arbetsplatser, att organisationerna har en plan för att ta tillvara på explicit kunskap i högre utsträckning än tyst kunskap samt att respondenterna ser tillit som en viktig faktor när de ska dela sin tysta kunskap.

Communities of practice that occur naturally within an organisation enable the members to learn through participation in practice together (Lave & Wenger, 1991). However, when a community lacks expertise in 21st century practices, learning these skills through shared practice becomes difficult. E-learning is often marketed as if the tools were easy to adopt and adapt, but effective professional development is required to support educators in learning to employ e-learning tools in their practice. Research shows that effective professional development is timely, relevant, flexible, and often collaborative in nature with examples of good practice. The research presented in this thesis describes the design and implementation of professional development which supports a community of practitioners in building the expertise to incorporate e-learning within its professional practice. The research was informed by a comprehensive review of literature on professional development, with a focus on the area of e-learning, the theory behind the communities of practice concept, and the application of that theory. A design-based methodology was employed to gather data from a range of sources of evidence, over two years, in four iterative cycles of collaborative design, implementation, evaluation and redesign. The context in which the research took place was a small educational organisation with an average of twenty staff members over the duration of the study. This staged implementation of an online environment, designed in collaboration with the community, supported the development of a blended community of online practice and provided timely, relevant professional development in e-learning. Analysis of the research findings produced two instruments: (1) a matrix of strategies for enabling and supporting the development of a blended community of online practice, and (2) a heuristic model to guide the investigation of the learning taking place within the online aspect of a blended community of online practice. These instruments are recommended to designers, developers or researchers supporting the development of a blended community of online practice and the professional development taking place in its online environment.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES; 2016), contingent faculty comprise nearly half of the higher education teaching workforce. I was a contingent faculty member working in a music teacher preparation program at a small college in the Northeast U.S. Using Wenger’s communities of practice (1998) and Lave and Wenger’s legitimate peripheral participation (1991) as a theoretical lens, I conducted a self-study to understand: (a) how our group of two full-time and two part-time contingent faculty negotiated our work, and (b) how my contingent faculty identity was shaped through participating in the group. I analyzed transcriptions of group meetings, email messages sent among the group members, and brief interviews to establish that our community of practice (CoP) was positioned relative to broader enterprises, such as accrediting bodies and the state department of education that regulated teacher licensure. We negotiated our practices in response to their standards and regulations, and we often felt that our practices were constrained. I learned that the members of our CoP had rich histories of membership in other CoPs, and knowledge and identity from those CoPs were constantly reconciled with new understandings and identity. I learned that multimembership can be a hindrance for some, yet it can also be a benefit that helps propel the work of a CoP forward. My identity was shaped through dialogue with other members of the community. I learned that it is common for contingent faculty to feel as I did: autonomous and competent in my teaching practices, yet detached from the department (Kezar & Sam, 2010; Levin & Hernandez, 2014; Shaker, 2008). Learning some of the history of the joint enterprise helped me feel more connected and empowered, and as my dialogue with the full-time tenure-track faculty continued, I was given additional responsibility for developing and subsequently teaching two new courses. Very little research has been conducted from the perspective of contingent faculty in higher education. This self-study was therefore a timely addition to the literature, and it should be replicated, extended to other teacher education faculty, and also to collaborative self-studies between full-time and contingent faculty.

This study aims to explore the development of employee acceptance and process challenges and opportunities that surface when new technologies are introduced in a workplace environment. In the case of the implementation of automated vehicles, this study was conducted in close relationship with the organisation. In particular, we investigate employee acceptance and process challenges with an assistance of an analytic model, TAPA, built on the theoretical framework of trust, practice theory and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is supported with trust and practice theory to form a comprehensive framework.   The study stands on the philosophy of engaged scholarship and uses qualitative material from an exploratory case study, interviewing 22 respondents in order to cover an extensive part of the processes and practices affected by this implementation. Interestingly, the empirical data suggests that developing employee acceptance and combating process challenges and harnessing opportunities are not separate subjects, but streams in the same river. Therefore, to develop acceptance, the organisation would also need to work through the process challenges the respondents warrants action.

This dissertation examines the role that culinary entrepreneurship communities of practice, using Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) model (Lave & Wenger, 1991), can lead to better social and economic inclusion for Middle Eastern Muslim refugee chefs in Utah. The life history approach was used to construct life histories for two Middle Eastern Muslim refugee chefs in Utah who joined the Spice Kitchen Incubator (SKI) program. SKI is a community of practice funded by the International Rescue Committee to assist refugee chefs in the resettlement process. This was an exploratory study, and given the limited number of cases reviewed, the conclusions cannot be generalized. However, this study concludes that SKI, as a community of practice, despite the many difficulties faced by refugee programs in the period 2016-2018 (the study period), had a positive impact on the social and economic inclusion outcomes for the participants.

<p>The discipline of data science has gained substantial attention recently. This is mainly attributed to the technological advancement that led to an exponential increase in computing power and has made the generation and recording of enormous amounts of data possible on an everyday basis. It has become crucial for industries to wrangle, curate, and analyze data using data science techniques to make informed decisions. Making informed decisions is complex. Therefore, a trained data science workforce is required to analyze data on a real-time basis. The increasing demand for data science professionals has caused higher education institutions to develop courses and train students starting from the undergraduate level about the data science concepts and tools.</p> <p>Despite the efforts from the institutions and national agency such as National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, it has been witnessed that there have been significant challenges in retaining and attracting students in the discipline of data science. The novice learners in data science are required to possess the skills of a programmer, a statistician, research skills, and non-technical skills such as communication and critical thinking. The undergraduate students do not possess all the required skills, which, in turn, creates a cognitive load for novice learners (Koby & Orit, 2020). Research suggests that improving the teaching and mentoring methodologies can improve retention for students from all demographic groups (Seymour, 2002). Previous studies (e.g., Hoffmann et al., 2002, Flynn, 2015; Lenning & Ebbers, 1999) have revealed that learning communities are effective in improving student retention, especially at the undergraduate level, as it helps students develop a sense of belonging, socialize, and form their own identities. Learning communities have been identified as <em>high impact practices</em> (Kuh, 2008) that helps to develop identities and sense of belonging, however to the best of our knowledge there are few studies that focus on the development of the psychosocial and cognitive skills of the students enrolled in a data science learning community.</p> <p>To meet the demand for the future workforce and help undergraduate students develop data science skills, The Data Mine (TDM) at Purdue University has undertaken an initiative in the discipline of data science. The Data Mine is an interdisciplinary living-learning community that allows students from various disciplines to enroll and learn data science skills under the guidance of competent faculty and corporate mentors. The residential nature of the learning community allows the undergraduate students to live, learn and socialize with peers of similar interests and develop a sense of belonging. The constant interaction with knowledgeable faculty and mentors in real-world projects allows novice learners to master data science skills and develop an identity. The study aims to characterize the effects of identity formation, socialization, and learning of the undergraduate students enrolled in The Data Mine and answer the following research question:</p> <p><br></p> <p><strong>Quantitative: RQ 1:</strong> What are the perceptions of students regarding their identity formation, socialization opportunities, self-belief, and academic/intellectual development in The Data Mine? </p> <p><strong>Qualitative: Guiding RQ 2:</strong> How do students’ participation in activities and interaction with peers, faculty, staff at The Data Mine contribute to becoming an experienced member of the learning community?</p> <ul> <li><strong>Sub-RQ 2(a):</strong> What are the perceived benefits and challenges of participating in The Data Mine?</li> <li><strong>Sub-RQ 2(b):</strong> How do students describe their levels of socialization and a sense of belonging within The Data Mine?</li> <li><strong>Sub-RQ 2(c):</strong> How do students’ participation and interaction in The Data Mine help them form their identity?</li> </ul> <p>To approach the above research questions, we conducted a sequential explanatory mixed method study to understand the growth journey of students in terms of socialization, sense of belonging and identity formation. The data were collected in two phases: a quantitative survey study followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis, followed by narrative analysis. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis demonstrated that learning in The Data Mine happened through interaction and socialization of the students with faculty, staff, and peers at The Data Mine. Students found multiple opportunities to learn and develop data science skills, such as working on real-world projects or working in groups. This continuous interaction with peers, faculty and staff at The Data Mine helped them to learn and develop identities. This study revealed that students did develop a data science identity, but the corporate partner TAs developed a leader identity along with the data science identity. In summary all students grew and served as mentor, guide, and role models for new incoming students.</p>