Dilemmas in continuing professional learning: learning inscribed in frameworks or elicited from practice

Abstract

This paper explores a dilemma in continuing professional learning: the way learning is typically inscribed in continuing professional education (CPE) frameworks differs from that elicited from practice. It examines these differences in relation to both different underlying assumptions about learning and varying epistemological perspectives as well as the different purposes of CPE frameworks of professional bodies and organisations. It suggests that the dominant adoption of narrower conceptions of learning in professional organisations' frameworks ignores understandings about work and learning emerging from recent research in the field of workplace learning and focuses on a view that may privilege formal provision. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions in developing alternative continuing professional learning frameworks.

Keywords:

• continuing professional education
• professional learning
• practice perspectives
• workplace learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although the organisation shared this newly developed organisational document with the researchers, it was under the proviso that they did not publish or make public any specificities of the document.