This article aims to provide an insight into how students construct their professional knowledge and what the content and nature of personal professional knowledge is through the concept of PPTs (personal professional theories).
This article compares two strategies the detect development in PPT (personal professional theories): CM (concept mapping) and a combination of CM with SR (stimulated recall). The study reveals that both strategies succeed, but that the CM in the combined strategy performed worse. The article ends with several explanations, which all deserve further investigation.
In competence-based vocational education, personal professional theories, in which students integrate different types of knowledge and beliefs, are seen as important. Exactly how these theories can be measured is the main focus of this study, which uses a multi-method triangulation approach, an interview and a self-report. The latter (less-structured) matter seems to provide less insight into personal professional theories then the structured methods. Both structure and adequate prompts are important when personal professional theories are explicated.
