Scholarly skills as everyday practice – implications for education

The purpose of this paper is to understand how teachers, nurses and engineers view the use of scholarly skills, such as research and critical thinking, in occupational practice and what implications this understanding may have for (especially) teacher education.

Engineers, nurses and teachers who had worked for at least one year after their education was interviewed (telephone interviews). Four interviews from each category were made in this exploratory study.

Few of the interviewees spontaneously connect their research methods training or other elements of scientific thinking in their education to everyday work practice, but all give examples of systematic, reflective and critical elements as features present in the occupational context. Almost all also view the final thesis work done in their respective programmes as a gratifying experience. Further, they describe the freedom and independence they have in their choice of research question and form of work as appealing and encouraging.

The study is exploratory and the results should be used to develop ideas about how to improve scholarly/scientific training in profession-oriented higher education programmes.

This paper explore ways to understand and further develop the teaching of scholarly/scientific attitudes and ways of thinking in profession-oriented university programmes.

Scholarly skills such as critical thinking, analytical skills and awareness of different perspectives are important in all professions. How to design education to optimize such skills is important for people and society.

The value of the study is that it is a try to use experiences from different fields to improve the generic scholarly aspects of professional education (especially teacher education).