Posters as a means of sharing knowledge in continuing

Conferences are an important element of our continuing and professional educational practices (MacIntosh-Murray, 2007; Rowe, 2017a). Continuing education is a broad umbrella term that reflects the need for workers to stay current in their fields. Going beyond a general ethos of currency and development, certain professions require their members to undertake formal development activities, and these may be seen as a part condition for professional registration. The UK Department for Education (2016a) views that ‘The design of high-quality professional development is as complex a discipline as the design of high-quality teaching. It requires the planning of programmes of connected activities with clarity about intended outcomes, and evaluation’, and their implementation guidance (2016b, p. 5) specifically advocates attending education conferences ‘to increase awareness of new ideas’. ASP conferences offer the potential to access such information, and due to their implied professional nature, it can be assumed that quality events concur with the standard criteria that ‘Professional development should be underpinned by robust evidence and expertise’ (Standard 2) and that ‘Professional development should include collaboration and expert challenge’ (Standard 3). Furthermore, the Department of Education (2016b, p. 8) recommends that providers of professional development provide opportunities to ‘draw out and constructively challenge participants’ existing beliefs’, and to ‘actively seek robust and independent evaluations of their programmes to demonstrate impact on intended outcomes’. However, there is little evidence as to whether conference organisers have taken steps to address these measures, despite a range of ‘credits’ and ‘certificates of attendance’ being distributed to attendees. On a European level, teacher professional learning and professional development are differentiated, with professional learning seen as ‘dynamic, ongoing, continuous, and set in teachers’ daily lives’ (Caena, 2011, p. 10). Although the ethos of functional and applied learning may seem as a fairly logical professional attitude to continued professional development (CPD hereafter), this is not necessarily the case, and the benefits of conference attendance are often short lived – we have a ‘good time’, learn lots of ‘interesting things’ and have ‘interesting conversations’, but the outcomes of our activities are not clearly evident. CPD is also a mandatory requirement of many other professions, including medicine (e.g. GMC, 2012), nursing (e.g. RCN, 2016), allied health professions (e.g. HCPC,

2018), dentistry (e.g. GDC, 2013), and law (e.g. SRA, 2016). Looking beyond the UK, the CPD Standards Office (2018) recognises CPD as a global phenomenon and as a standard expectation of any professional body or regulator. Within Europe, Western countries have a larger number of professional bodies and institutions than their Eastern counterparts. Australia and New Zealand follow similar models to the UK. In America, CPD is also referred to in terms of Continuing Education (CE), Continuing Professional Education (CPE), Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Continuing Legal Education (CLE). However, the CPD Standards Office (2018) notes that more than 4000 professional bodies, regulators and institutes exist across the country, and that requirements differ on a state-to-state basis.

In addition to those who use conferences as a means for formal CPD, there are a wide range of professions that attend conferences to access and present the latest work in their fields, as well as to engage in professional socialisation and networking. In addition to 17 professional areas, Rowe (2017a, p. 13) notes 21 separate disciplinary areas, grouped under the domains of humanities, formal sciences, social sciences, computer sciences and natural sciences. All of these will have numerous sub- disciplines and working and interest areas, all of which will hold conferences that function as a means to pursue continuing learning and development. It is clear that members of these groups will both attend and present at conferences, and the core functions of knowledge sharing, development and professional networking remain the same for both regulated and unregulated activities. Again, higher education is a consistent reference point in conference literature, and many ASP conference delegates will be either employed or enrolled in higher education institutions, or follow professions that are grounded in higher education and training. Although conference events may not address education as a specific content theme, the concepts of disseminating and generating academic and scientific knowledge indicate that the mainstream study of ASP conferences would logically fall within a higher education purview.

However, the lack of dedicated literature and reporting suggests that there is no established field of study that examines conference practices, and that the continuing education departments of universities err towards the established domains of medical and educational CPD, albeit bespoke courses are sometimes arranged to meet the needs of particular groups.

At ASP conferences, the capacity for oral (or podium) presentation is understandably limited, even at the largest of events. As described in §1.1, poster presentation arose to address this situation. The aims and mechanism of poster presentation appear to have changed little since their inception. Since the early reports of poster presentation (also referred to as ‘display sessions’), presenters would display their work in a visual manner, and delegates could browse the displays and engage in one-on-one discussions with the authors. In this way, poster sessions were seen as offering a more direct form of exposure for presenters, and facilitating

interactive peer exchanges that were not necessarily to be had with the more linear form of oral presentation format (see Rowe, 2014b for an interview with the chair of the earliest recorded ‘demonstration session’ in 1969). As a general concept this holds true. Posters display an overview of a defined subject, and the detailed knowledge is accessed by interaction with the presenter, and facilitated by referring to displayed points on the poster (see Rowe, 2012, p. 133; Rowe, 2017a, p. 12). Given their pervasive presence at ASP conferences, poster presentations are clearly a means of sharing knowledge in continuing and professional education, yet little research has been undertaken as to their mechanisms or practical efficacy. This is surprising as from a hierarchical ontological perspective (see §1.2), despite posters being a common form of conference presentation, they are ranked well below oral presentation and there are increasingly critical voices that serve to counter the generally positive positions adopted towards them in the literature.