Going back to University

The previous section identified Julie’s struggle in positioning herself as a researcher in her work-placement and argued that such struggle might have been the result of interpreting the placement experience as a simulation of a real workplace, in which her efforts were dedicated to maintaining and further developing her student identity, instead of learning to belong to that new professional community of practice (Wenger, 1998).

One aspect that contributed to this understanding of Julie’s placement being experienced as a simulation was her focus on the transitory nature of the placement, evident in her frequent reports during the interviews of being aware and concerned with the return to university for the final year of her degree.

“I think it’s just because, (…) I know that I’m going back next year to be a student again. So, it’s not like I feel, ‘oh, I’m really in the workplace’ that much. It is still in between and I’m really a student.”

(Julie, Interview 4)

From this quote, it is possible to argue that Julie did not perceive herself as a student in transition, learning to develop a professional identity, but as student in between her studies, role-playing a professional identity. One implication of this perspective it that it became difficult for Julie to manage her transition in terms her identity development. A second implication, however, was that Julie more easily perceived the connection between both contexts, which according to some transfer theories and expansive framing theory (Engle, 2006; 2012), could have some positive implications as well. The most obvious one is that assuming one is a student “in between studies” (Julie, Interview 2) provides a link between the context of learning and the context for transfer that according to some learning transfer theories might promote learning transfer. That is the case for Thorndike’s (1906; Woodworth and Thorndike, 1901) identical elements theory or Bransford and Schwartz’s (1999) preparation for future learning theory.

Following this argument, Julie’s perception of the placement as a mediational transition (Beach, 1999; 2003) may have enabled her to develop a sense of connectedness between the settings that within Engle’s (2006; 2012) expansive framing theory is the basis for an increased focus on the moment of learning (Engle et al., 2010) and for increased expectations of future learning transfer. Furthermore, it is also arguable that Julie’s perception of both settings being connected promoted her view of the transition from university to the workplace and back as a near transfer situation (Mayer, 1975; Royer, 1978). According to classical transfer theories, that perception would then improve her abilities to transfer learning on the grounds that similarities between the learning and transfer context are expected to facilitate transfer (Thorndike, 1906; 1923; 1924), as it becomes easier for the individual to identify the common stimuli between them (Lobato, 2006). Looking at Julie’s experience of the placement and of the return to university, there is evidence that she experienced them as connected settings and that she perceived the learning occurring between them as being transferable.

“A lot of the things that I was using in university, I was also using in my research. So, I think it’ll be easier for me to go back to university.” (Julie, Interview 5)

For Julie, seeing her placement and its tasks as being connected to her university experience created the expectation that her new or improved ability to perform them could be transferred back into her last year of university. To some extent, this meant that Julie could adopt a strategic approach regarding learning in the placement that she anticipated as useful for her last year.

“Yeah, really relevant, especially since I wrote the literature review and next year my dissertation’s literature review is going to be worth 20% of my whole dissertation. So that’s gonna really help, because all my friends this year were like, ‘what’s a literature review?’, because they just went straight from second year to third year and they didn’t have this experience. Whereas I took a whole month writing a literature review, or even more, and I had actual professors helping me, so that will make it easier for me.”

According to Engle et al. (2010), this perception of the future usefulness of that particular learning provides an important message to the learner regarding transfer. The message is that the students “are allowed, encouraged, and even responsible for transferring what they know from one context to all others linked with it” (Engle et al., 2010, p. 605). For Julie, this view of the connectedness between the placement and university meant the expectation of transfer of learning regarding her ability to write a literature review and her overall improved academic writing, but also on more specific aspects of her placement tasks, like data collection processes, which at the time she could not be sure if they would be relevant or not, but that, nonetheless, could be.

“Because you know you have to do some data collection while writing your dissertation, you have to do some research. If I decide to maybe do some semi-structured interviews, or if I decide to go out with surveys, then I’ll know a bit more of this style to write, what to include. Because, even if it’s a different project, you still have that thing of, what type of questions to ask, and the relevance and not to make it too long. You just have that background experience.”

(Julie, Interview 3)

This reporting focusing on her current tasks and linking them with future transfer was present not only during my data collection processes (e.g. interviews), but also on her own reflections about the placement, as the following excerpt from one of her written blog entries shows.

Upon reflection of this task, I think this task has helped for future writing because it has shown me how to be more critical of my own work and to provide backing evidence for every point that I make. (…) I believe by reading other people’s work which I had to do in this task, it demonstrated to me the different writing styles that people can have and provided me with ideas for future writing.

(Julie, Excerpt from Monthly Reflections)

The argument put forward by Engle (2012), but also previously addressed by Bransford and Schwartz’s (1999) in their preparation for future learning theory, is that if students anticipate that a certain piece of knowledge or skill is relevant

for their future, they are more likely to focus on it while learning it and transfer it to a new situation. In returning to university, what Julie reported was in line with the outcome of this argument.

“I think it’s going quite well in terms of, because my industrial placement was actually a year in research. So I had lots of work to do with writing literature reviews and just general academic writing. So I think that helped me quite a lot, because when I’ve been writing my essays, I have been getting firsts, because I have been able to find better general articles, cos now I know how to search them properly. And then, just generally being more critical of my work.”

(Julie, Interview 6)

Indeed, within the areas that she had anticipated the placement learning being useful for her last year of university (e.g. academic writing, smaller tasks like searching for papers, preparing a critical argument or even referencing) Julie reported an increase in her ability with good outcomes to her grades. Obviously, as presented before in Julie’s overall description (sections 4.2.3 and 5.2), she was already a good student with good grades before the placement. Nonetheless, in her reports of returning to university Julie stated she felt different and had a different approach regarding some tasks that she performed in the placement, when compared to before the placement experience.

“I wasn’t at all late at doing my assignments. Maybe I’d finish two days in advance, or maybe even just a day in advance. But now, all suddenly, in terms of the reference list, which usually has all the support references, then I used to leave that to the last day and that then takes the entire day to do, because it’s just finding the source again and everything if I haven’t saved them. And now, I also do the referencing as I go along. So, I don’t have to spend a day on that as well.”

(Julie, Interview 6)

It appears as if, for Julie, framing (Engle et al., 2010; Engle, 2012) certain aspects of her placement, namely those that bore a close resemblance with her university work and were instances of near transfer regarding content (Mayer, 1975), as relevant for the last year of her studies (temporal framing),

in her classes, assignments and for her thesis (spatial framing), within her capacity as a student with, for example, the same supervisor (social framing), and working on the same topics (content framing) might have proved a successful strategy for Julie’ s learning transfer. Indeed, Julie also transferred this strategy into her last year, for example, in regards to the content in her classes in relation to her future desired job.

“I’m applying more for operations jobs and I have an operations management module, so I think, ok, concentrate on what they’re saying because you might need it in your job.”

(Julie, Interview 6)

I believe this ability of framing expansively her learning regarding when, where, who, what and how a specific learning might be important in the future (Engle 2006; 2012) that Julie developed in the placement, or because of the placement, was mostly implicit for Julie and one that she did not express directly in out interviews. Indeed, Julie’s explicit reports of learning transfer, specifically in the transition from university to the placement, always fell under the classification of near transfer instances (Mayer, 1975; Royer, 1978). This means that Julie was able to identify and perceive transfer of learning, but mostly on tasks that were very closely related and hence characterised as near. Following this perspective, Julie reported anticipating transfer from the placement back to university on searching for academic papers, academic writing and some other research skills, such as data analysis and the use of a specific software. These were all areas that Julie improved during the placement and whose transfer back to university was near (Mayer, 1975; Royer, 1978).

However, on returning to university Julie also became aware that the placement had been, despite her difficulties during the placement with identity confrontation (Tanggaard, 2008) and her desire to maintain a student identity, a transformative and developmental experience (Beach, 1999; 2003).

“Last week I went into Uni and there were all these, I think it was a week done for internationals and some other people. So I just felt like, you know, these are students and I just felt a bit like, ‘oh, I’m so much older than them and I worked here and everything’. So that felt a bit more

professional then. Because I think I felt more like a student because I was working with professors who’re in their forties and had so much experience. That’s why I felt so much like a student. But then, actually, actually being around students, I don’t feel like a student that much (laughing).”

(Julie, Interview 5)

The idea coming across in this quote is that for Julie her development in the placement was to some extent an unconscious process in which the physical setting and the social interactions with her immediate peers played a big part. She compared herself to the others with whom she interacted and, in the placement such comparison led her to never really feeling like a full participant (Lave and Wenger, 1998). However, on her return to university, while comparing herself to other students, she realised that something had changed and that she no longer so clearly identified herself as a student. Consequently, it was only on her return to her previous role that Julie became aware of her movement away from being a newcomer (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and fully understood her placement experience as a consequential transition (Beach, 1999; 2003) that “changes one’s sense of self and positioning” (Beach, 1999, p. 114).

Supporting the argument of Julie’s placement being transformative and developmental there were other areas of learning that Julie reported from her placement. For example, her ability to work for longer periods of time, of being “able to do more (…), less distracted” (Julie, Interview 5), but also being “more resilient (…) and quite inventive” (Julie, Interview 5). All of these focused on her self-view and personal development in the placement.

“I think I’m probably more confident and I’m more confident to ask for help, and I’m more confident to do some tasks that have been assigned to me, rather than being scared, ‘oh, can I do it, can I not?’. And I think I’m less shy to also ask people for help as well.”

(Julie, Interview 5)

I believe that this focus on her own personal development during the placement as a standpoint to assess her readjustment to the university life reinforces the notion that learning transfer processes are as much social as

individual and that the outcome of the transition between contexts lays at the intersection, or even better, within the dialogic relation between them. Additionally, it is important to note that Julie had university support from a tutor and the obligation to reflect on her experience during the placement, but that she had to manage the transition back to university by herself. This fact is important because research has demonstrated that reflecting about learning is difficult for students (Eraut, 2000), so having to manage such transition without support might result in some key learning experiences persisting unconscious for the students.

Overall, Julie’s return to the university reinforced her description of the placement as a valuable experience towards building her CV, providing her with opportunities and evidence of practical application of knowledge, as well as a better understanding of the type and amount of problems one might face in a real job, both of which she described as valuable for her job hunting after graduation. Also looking at the future, the placement experience might provide a frame of action for further incursions into the world of work, although for Julie, the possibilities to expand on her experiences will always be limited by her own characterisation of the placement as a mediational transition (Beach, 1999; 2003), built around several instances of near transfer (Mayer, 1975; Royer, 1978).

Progressing from the apparently safe opportunity that the placement provided for Julie to experience the workplace under her own conditions, the return to university, already very anticipated by her at the end of the placement, proved to be an important feature of her own perception of the personal value of the placement and of the requalification of her movement from newcomer towards a full(er) participant (Lave and Wenger, 1991).