BCAB are delighted that Katy, a committee member of the Awarding Body has recently completed her Doctor of Education through researching ‘The Influence of Higher Education Study on Practitioners in the Field of Outdoor and Adventure Education’.
Such a commitment of time, dedication and focus – well done Katy.
A glance into Katy’s study:
Using the theoretical framework of Wenger’s 1998 communities of practice (CoP) theory, the research focused on two distinct CoP’s, the OAE HE CoP and the OAE practitioner CoP. It included participants from a local OAE centre, a local HE institute and participants from the wider field of OAE.
The theoretical framework was developed into a heuristic device, which also encompasses the term ‘personal knowledge capital’ developed from the work of Young (2012). The heuristic device was used as an analytical tool to provide specific entry points to analyse the data generated through four stages of research.
Through the entry point of ‘identity’, the data was analysed, and three themes were discussed: what an OAE expert is, the role of multi membership, and the role of personal knowledge capital. Personal knowledge capital is discussed as a boundary artifact that can be exchanged between the two CoP’s and has the potential to influence the identity construction of the practitioners.
It was found that brokers have a role to play in negotiating the meaning of experiences for the OAE practitioners and can, in turn, influence the identity construction of the OAE practitioners.
