Thesis presentation Kaisa Pihlaja Adaptive experts in ICT domain – implications of learning of expertise in teamwork environment Thesis presentation Kaisa Pihlaja

Background Extensive amount of studies on experts and expertise Traditionally focused on individual expertise on various domains, concentrating especially on the cognitive aspects of expertise Lately the attention has turned to shared expertise and expertise in work life Routine experts vs. adaptive experts (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986) Reseach gap addressed in my study: social aspects of learning of expertise individuals in teams (context)

Research questions RQ1: How adaptive experts act in teams? RQ2: How adaptive experts learn in teams? RQ3: How adaptive experts perceive their working environment?

Why ICT domain? knowledge workers whose jobs require specialisation and expertise on specific domains (e.g. software development, information design) often knowledge on only one domain is not enough, but diverse know-how and skills are needed work is mainly done in teams

Metodology: data collection Qualitative research interview: aims is to understand the participants’ experiences, ideas, thoughts, and perceptions (Gibson, 2010) technically, the qualitative research interview is a semi-structured interviews consisting of chosen themes and questions related to those themes (Kvale, 1996; Tuomi & Sarajärvi, 2002) interviewer follows up the participants’ answers and seeks new information about or new angles to the research topic (Kvale, 1996)

Participant selection in this study Criteria for the selection of the participants (adaptive experts): Considered as experts in their organisation Work in expert or specialist position in their organisation (according to job role description) 10+ years of work experience in the domain Work tasks are challenging and often complex Adaptive problem solving skills Positive attitude towards new, challenging situations, and learning new + work in at least one team

Interviews in this study Four themes in the interview: Theme 1: questions related to characteristics of adaptive expertise Theme 2: how the participants act in team (RQ1) Theme 3: how the participants learn in teams (RQ2) Theme 4: how the participants perceive their work environment (RQ3)

Metodology: data analysis Qualitative content analysis: content analysis can be seen as a loose theoretical framework for analyzing content that is either written, heard, or seen (Tuomi & Sarajärvi, 2002) abductive, or theory-oriented approach: in abductive data analysis the inferences made by the researcher fluctuates between data-driven (inductive) and theory- driven (deductive) analysis (Tuomi & Sarajärvi, 2002; Eskola, 2001)

Data analysis procedure in NVivo Familiarising with the data (audiofiles recorded in the interviews) Deciding the unit of analysis: utterances Marking the interesting parts in the interviews Clustering: coding the chosen data into nodes (sub-categories) Abstracting: coded data sorted into main-categories

Deductive and inductive data analysis Deductive analysis: Theme 1 in the interview: examining the nature of the participants’ expertise, that is, whether they can be considered as adaptive experts Categories (nodes) were created based the participant selection criteria i.e. common characteristics of adaptive experts Inductive analysis: Themes 2, 3, and 4: search answers to the research questions Categories (nodes) were created based on the similar content and concepts that emerge from the participants answers

Results (1/3) RQ1: How adaptive experts act in teams? Enhance social and emotional stability in team Enhance team collaboration and shared expertise Exhibit social intelligence in changing settings when interacting with different people

Results (2/3) RQ2: How adaptive experts learn in teams? Learn from teamwork in contact with different people Learn from everyday work Learn from problem solving cases

Results (3/3) RQ3: How adaptive experts perceive their working environment? Factors that are perceived as challenging in the work environment Factors that should be improved to further facilitate and improve working Factors in the work environment that develop expertise