Students as practitioners in academia proficiency and reflectivity in study practices

Abstract

In this paper, I will ask what happens when students' experiences of studying in a business school, instead of their experiences in workplaces, are taken as a starting point for course planning and organising. The course in question was called Professional Development (PD) and it was offered at the Helsinki School of Economics in 2005 (see Rsnen and Korpiaho forthcoming). In the course, we considered the process of students becoming skilled and reflective business students as an analogy to employees gaining proficiency and reflectivity in other work practices (see Gherardi et al. 1998; Brown and Duguid 1991). We approached the participation of students in study practices as if it were participation in work practices and their learning as if it were similar to that of other practitioners. The results show that students are able to construct profound and concrete reflections of their own practices.