Continuing professional development of social and healthcare educators (TerOpe)

Future social and healthcare educators are required to have versatile competence in educating skilled professionals for constantly changing healthcare environments and meeting divergent clients. The precondition of educators' competence is continuing professional development. The aim of the research was to describe educators professional continuous competence development and identify aspects influencing it. The data was collected by group interviews of 35 experienced social and healthcare educators in six institutions of higher education and two vocational schools across Finland. The data was analyzed by inductive content analysis.  

Educators maintain and develop their competence in versatile ways. Educators continuing professional development takes place both in formal continuing education and in collaboration at daily work. As barriers to development, educators experienced the lack of planning and the lack of resources such as time and money. According to educators their professional development needs are individual and should be taken into account as well as organization´s needs. Educators  want to be updated in constant changing society and educate skilled professionals for social and healthcare environments.

The national project is coordinated by the Research Unit of Nursing Science and Health Management at the University of Oulu in collaboration with the University of Eastern Finland, Tampere University, the University of Turku, the University of Jyväskylä, Åbo Academi University and Tampere University of Applied Sciences. The project includes four stages I-IV. Our project is three-tongued: Finnish, Swedish and English.  

Publications: https://teropehanke.wordpress.com/publications/

The TerOpe-project aims to define national competence requirements for health science and social service educators (stages I-II), develops and integrates a model for continuous education (stage III), and will pilot a new study module for educators and educator students in digitalization (stage IV).  

Tampere University and Tampere University of Applied Sciences are doing research and developing work in Stage III: Continuig professional development of social and healthcare teachers.

Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland

Maria Kääriäinen

Professor

maria.kaariainen [at] oulu.fi

0294485613

 

Kristina Mikkonen

Researcher, PhD, project coordinator

kristina.mikkonen [at] oulu.fi

 

Minna Koskimäki

PhD candidate, project researcher

minna.koskimaki [at] tuni.fi

+358 50 313 7624