Professional learning and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) are widely used terms but investigating the literature (and questionnaire responses) it becomes clear that CPD is a highly contested concept.
Madden and Mitchell (1993 cited in CISI, 2010) offer a widly adopted definition of CPD:
“The maintenance and enhancement of the knowledge, expertise and competence of professionals throughout their careers according to a plan formulated with regard to the needs of the professional, the employer, the profession and society”
(Madden and Mitchell 1993 quoted in CISI 2010:3)
This definition prioritises the needs of the organisation, which may explain a thread of skepticism around the value of CPD for the individual. McWilliam (2002), for example, disputes formal notions of professional learning arguing that the process of academia is incompatible with formalised Continuing Professional Development. McWilliam’s position reveals the problematic ambiguity of what CPD really means, something also reflected in varied understandings, often cynical, reported in this research:
Robin: At the moment, CPD means going to conferences, but in the future perhaps online learning. Informal learning means absorbing new facts and policies in a less structured way
Jim: CPD: getting the boss to pay for it / transferable qualifications
The Professional Associations Research Network (quoted in CISI 2010) offer a definition more focused on the needs of the professional but still conceptualises CPD as structured, career focused and strongly defined by formal roles and organisations. Jones and Robinson’s (1999) research on CPD and employer practice in Wales reinforces this understanding but found minimal financial support or time provision for CPD. In their assessment of CPD practice and professional organisations Friedman, Hurran and Durkin (1999) found highly varied practice around establishing best practice and benchmarking for CPD, and note that the changing nature of the workplace, in particular the outsourcing of training activities, has led to:
“a shift in attitudes away from the employer as provider of continuing professional education, and towards individuals as seekers of vocational education and developers of their own opportunities”
(Friedman, Hurran and Durkin 1999:53)
This notion of the individual as responsible, partly or substantially, for identifying their own CPD learning needs and ensuring that they are met is more closely aligned with the concept of informal learning already discussed. Informal and flexible workplace and work-related learning, including tacit and less formally recognised forms of CPD, is well described by Slotte and Tynjälä (2010) in their work on opportunities for industry and university collaboration, and by Carmeli, Brueller and Dutton (2009) in their consideration of workplace relationships and psychological safety. This idea of CPD incorporating informal and unstructured activity is a good fit for the types of exchanges within social media examined here.
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