Firefighter training in Sweden: from face-to-face learning in training grounds to distance learning – a challenge for exercise instructors?

Abstract

When distance learning supported by digital technologies was introduced in firefighter training in Sweden some years ago, training exercise instructors accustomed to face-to-face teaching in the field had to adapt their professional roles to an electronic landscape with a number of new opportunities and constraints. Based on activity theory and comparisons between campus and distance mode, this study was aimed at increasing the understanding of how the training exercise instructor role is affected by the shift towards technology-enhanced distance learning. An analysis of interviews with instructors and students, and observations of response exercises, show that contradictions are emerging in the distance mode between instructors’ motives, their technology tools and the object of the training they provide, and also between the two types of training, that is, the campus and the distance modes. Structural tensions and personal motives contribute to changes in the division of labour with instructors tending to adopt a much more passive role in the distance mode compared to their more active role in the campus mode.