A NEW WIND BLOWING: RECONCEPTUALISING THE SKILLS GAP DISCOURSE FOR PROFESSIONALS IN THE EMERGING SECTOR OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

Jennifer Scoles, School of Education, Year 1 ProPEL Research Doctoral Student, University of Stirling; Supervisor: Professor Tara Fenwick

How does Higher Education equip students Background with the capacities for a professional career Policy: Scottish government is in a sector that is still emerging and thus pushing for the advancement of the where the practices are still renewable energy sector to provide 70,000+ new jobs by 2021 . However, unknown, highly unpredictable, and numerous policy and media documents multi-disciplinary?
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Theoretical Implications
This study shifts the perspective of professional learning from the individual and their cognitive capabilities to that of a practice-based, sociomaterial approach. Practice-based: Gherardi (2000) points to knowing-inpractice as the figure of discourse that allows the processes of knowing at work and in organizing to be articulated as historical processes, material and indeterminate2. Knowledge is not held in the individual, but is constructed by practising in a context of relational interaction, or as Orlikowski (2007) terms, as constitutively entangled3 in everyday life (e.g. in networks, associations, and assemblages). Sociomaterial: A practice-based approach conflates the divide between human and instrument placing the human among the material. In acknowledging the materiality as well as the social (sociomaterial) one can explore the mobilisation of the material, cognitive, affective and semiotic resources and tools that can, and should be, part of the learning experience in the workplace. Borrowing concepts from actor network theory (ANT), such as boundary objects4, can help trace learning incidents at work.

Case Study TurboUK

Case: A UK subsidiary of an international renewable
energy company: emerging. transnational, interprofessional and

report a skills gap between current Higher Education (HE) provision, in particular engineering education, and the demands from this industry. Education: In an attempt to align HE with the knowledge society, policy makers have pushed to plug this skills gap by emphasising a competency-based curricula with a focus on generic skills. A skills gap discourse treats knowledge in the traditional cognitive framework as objective, contained, and transferable. Given this perspective, workplace practices are considered as stable, predictable and solvable when they are in fact increasingly complex, dynamic and uncertain. Research: Current research methods to explore how HE can plug . this gap include employer questionnaires, telephone interviews with employers and quantitative surveys. As well as reinforcing the logic of acquisition, these methods incur low ecological credibility, and are therefore ill-equipped to reflect everyday work practices.

Aim: To explore how project managing engineers mobilise

and negotiate knowledge as an on-going, embedded, and temporal process, rather than as a reified entity (or skill).

Participants: Purposive sampling of 4-6 HE degree

qualified engineers who project manage wind turbine installation.

Pilot Study

Photography as a data gathering tool makes visible learning incidents in everyday working and organising. Differences in professional practices can be negotiated with the activity of translation, through the use of boundary objects:

Method
The case study is qualitative in nature and will draw from ethnographic methods. The researcher will be immersed in the field 2-3 days a week for around 3 months. The researcher is interested in exploring what knowledge resources workers draw upon, how technologies effect certain kinds of practice, and how the workers respond to the most challenging problems they encounter. A multi-method data collection approach will include: Unobtrusive, direct observation of consenting participants Follow the actor5 Informal conversations with participants as and when discussions arise in the field Attending meetings and site visits when appropriate Taking field notes of these observations and meetings Sourcing documents that are used in every day practices Conducting semi-structured interview discussing everyday work practices; these will include Interview to the double6 Negotiating additional ways to collect data of work practices, such as taking photos with a mobile phone : Initial analysis will be on-going and emergent; data will be coded and categorised to form emerging themes which will be developed in a full analysis. Visual photos and documents will be analysed to understand how knowledge is shared and negotiated.

Possible emerging constructs:

Learning in uncertainty Boundary crossing and trading zones Practice-based bundles of distributed knowledge Negotiated practice

Impact
This study is predicted to influence: Developmental and policy levels for HE curricula Capacity development and training for professionals in emerging sectors.

References:
1. ClickGreen, 6th October 2011, Renewables training network set up to tackle green skills shortage, Available at http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/green-career/green-vacancies/122610renewables%5C-training-network-set-up-to-tackle-green-skills-shortage.html [Accessed 20/11/11]. 2. Gherardi, S., 2000. Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in organisations: An introduction, Organization, 7(2), pp. 211-223. 3. Orlikowski, W.J., 2007. Sociomaterial practices: Exploring technology at work, Organization Studies, 28(9), pp.1435-1448. 4. Star, S.L., and Griesemer, J.R., 1989. Institutional Ecology, 'Translations', and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology 1907-39, Social Studies of Science, 19(3), pp. 387- 420. 5. Latour, B., 1987. Science in Action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 6. Nicolini, D., 2009. Articulating practice through the interview to the double, Management Learning, 40(2), pp. 195-212.

For more information, please contact Jennifer at j.e.scoles@stir.ac.uk