Future Professional Roles Research Articles

Shaping future professional roles: new marketplace-oriented attitudes in curriculum development in Denmark

Discusses the revisions by the Royal School of Librarianship of its curriculum for educating and training information professionals, especially for the non-traditional library sector. This has not been without its problems, but is considered essentia

Preparing Special Education Leadership for Problem Solving in a High Tech World

A broad range of national and international social structures are changing rapidly as we become a nation engaged in the business of thinking and communicating knowledge as opposed to the historical base of industrial manufacturing. What these dramatic changes hold for the well-being of handicapped people is unknown. The resulting challenge to the new leadership in special education is perhaps the greatest in the history of the profession. New approaches to new problems will require new approaches to leadership preparation, yet we must continue to meet present needs. The leadership preparation model described responds to both current conditions and future needs. The model anticipates that the special education leaders in the next decade will be able to reconceptualize future professional roles, identify new knowledge and approaches to instruction, design new curricula, establish effective transdisciplinary models for administering special education programs, and become effective advocates for handicapped people in a high technology world. The model proposes multiple learning environments and mentors through which inquiry, innovation, application, evaluation, and new technology can be brought to bear on the preparation of individuals for leadership in solving the critical issues with which special education will move into the 21st century.

The clouded crystal ball: Is there a school psychology in our future?

An overview of contradictory forces and pulls acting upon school psychology today, a commentary on economic and legislative impact upon the profession, and a discussion of issues such as definition of client, mainstreaming, the individual educational program, due process, and the least restrictive environment as they may affect future professional roles.

Introducing medical students to family therapy using simulated family interviews.

Small groups of medical students are introduced to the subject of family therapy using a technique involving the simulation of family interviews. The students are called upon to enact a situation in which family members visit their general practitioner with a problem relating to one of the children, and the diffusion of this problem within the family is traced during the course of the simulation. Discussion is focused on the feelings evoked by the simulation, the psychodynamics of the simulated family and the quality of the relationship between the general practitioner and the family as it arises out of the interview. An effort is made to help the students to get in touch with some of their feelings towards disturbed families and to mobilize these feelings towards the effective management of the family's problems. By role playing the general practitioner, students can prepare themselves for their future professional roles in a situation which allows for feedback from colleagues and experimentation. At the same time, when family members are role-played, the process of identification and empathy with patients is enhanced. The technique is potentially stressful because of the unusual demands that it makes upon the students in terms of personal involvement, but the experience derived from successive groups of students over a 2 year period has been consistently rewarding, and most students have expressed an enthusiastic interest in the exercise.

Orthodontics in the Undergraduate Curriculum—a Personal View of Doubts and Uncertainties

This paper is intended to highlight some of the acute problems facing educators who are responsible for devising orthodontic curricula. A rational approach to future planning of educational objectives requires a realistic evaluation of the future professional role of today's students.

Science: Its Theory and Practice, An Introduction for Doctoral Students

For a number of years, both the Research Policy Programme (Lund) and the Theory of Science Institute (Goteborg) in Sweden have held courses on the research process. In Lund, these courses have primarily concentrated on the 'practice' of research: how it is organized, conducted, planned, financed, etc. In Goteborg, the emphasis has been on research 'theory' including definitions of science, philosophies of science, and the question of objectivity in science. During the spring term 1973, representatives of the two institutions began to plan a course together, so that the two major areas of interest could be combined into a more comprehensive examination of the research process. Our purposes in planning such a course have been many. In our previous courses and our research work, we have found that many doctoral students, in both the natural and social sciences, lack a perspective in which they can understand their research work and their future social and professional roles as scientists. Most of them do not seem to have a very clear notion of what science is all about. Most are unfamiliar with the growing body of literature in the 'science of science', the studies of research work. And, if they have looked at this literature, many have found it difficult to relate this material to their own practical needs as researchers. We have tried, in this course, to begin to fill these gaps in knowledge and perspective.