Learning Occupational Practice in the Absence of Expert Guidance: The Agentic Action of Australian Home Care Workers

Palesy, DL; Billett, SR

Learning Occupational Practice in the Absence of Expert Guidance: The Agentic Action of Australian Home Care Workers

Palesy, DL

Billett, SR

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Publisher:: Springer
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Agency at Work: An Agentic Perspective on Professional Learning and Development, 2017, pp. 271 - 289 (18)
Issue Date:: 2017-09-06

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Palesy, DL https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4790-5398	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Billett, SR	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Goller, M	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Paloniemi, S	en_US
dc.date.issued	2017-09-06	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Agency at Work: An Agentic Perspective on Professional Learning and Development, 2017, pp. 271 - 289 (18)	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	978-3-319-60942-3	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/117982
dc.description.abstract	Many kinds of workers need to both work and learn in socially isolated circumstances (i.e. in the absence of others who can provide guidance and support). Such circumstances require particular kinds of agency and agentic action by these worker-learners, and they might be described as requiring particularly agentic personal epistemologies. These epistemologies are essential for workers such as home care workers (HCWs), who, after a perfunctory classroom training, are expected to work alone in clients’ homes providing a range of support, such as mobility and hygiene assistance. This chapter draws on a recent investigation into the work and learning of a small cohort of such HCWs and maps how they exercise agency in their work practice, work-related learning and development. These workers deployed, in different ways, their past personal experiences (e.g. work, life, education), the classroom training provided, opportunities to engage with other HCWs and support from other informed sources in learning the requirements for their role. Moreover, these workers exercised agentic action by “personalising” their scaffolding or learning supports. That is, they constructed, engaged with and subsequently relinquished scaffolding as personally necessitated, rather than relying on “experts” to decide how and when these forms of learning support should be enacted and withdrawn. What is important here is how these workers’ subjectivities are found to include actions and monitoring of performance, not just ideas and dispositions. Through an account of how this particular cohort exercised agentic action, some conclusions are drawn and recommendations made for the best ways of progressing the learning and development of such socially isolated workers.	en_US
dc.publisher	Springer	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Agency at Work: An Agentic Perspective on Professional Learning and Development	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1007/978-3-319-60943-0	en_US
dc.title	Learning Occupational Practice in the Absence of Expert Guidance: The Agentic Action of Australian Home Care Workers	en_US
dc.type	Chapter
utslib.location	Cham	en_US
utslib.for	1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy	en_US
utslib.for	1199 Other Medical and Health Sciences	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Health
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Health/Nursing
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CHSP - Health Services and Practice
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	false	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	Cham	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US

Abstract:

Many kinds of workers need to both work and learn in socially isolated circumstances (i.e. in the absence of others who can provide guidance and support). Such circumstances require particular kinds of agency and agentic action by these worker-learners, and they might be described as requiring particularly agentic personal epistemologies. These epistemologies are essential for workers such as home care workers (HCWs), who, after a perfunctory classroom training, are expected to work alone in clients’ homes providing a range of support, such as mobility and hygiene assistance. This chapter draws on a recent investigation into the work and learning of a small cohort of such HCWs and maps how they exercise agency in their work practice, work-related learning and development. These workers deployed, in different ways, their past personal experiences (e.g. work, life, education), the classroom training provided, opportunities to engage with other HCWs and support from other informed sources in learning the requirements for their role. Moreover, these workers exercised agentic action by “personalising” their scaffolding or learning supports. That is, they constructed, engaged with and subsequently relinquished scaffolding as personally necessitated, rather than relying on “experts” to decide how and when these forms of learning support should be enacted and withdrawn. What is important here is how these workers’ subjectivities are found to include actions and monitoring of performance, not just ideas and dispositions. Through an account of how this particular cohort exercised agentic action, some conclusions are drawn and recommendations made for the best ways of progressing the learning and development of such socially isolated workers.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/117982