The Role of Professional Narrative Accounts in Preparing Future Ergonomists
This paper refers to an ongoing research project aimed at understanding the contribution of professional narrative accounts in preparing future ergonomists for their profession. It follows the recent introduction of a training program piloted by teachers in a university training center during which ergonomists gave students narrative accounts about their professional practice. This article focuses in particular on understanding the conditions in which students grasp and memorize professional narratives from a learning perspective. Analysis of teaching situations was based on the activities of the teachers, professionals and students. Several favorable learning conditions were identified. Grasp and memory recall were strongly associated. Some narratives were much more captivating and were better remembered by a majority of the students than others. Grasp and memory were strongly associated with the professional’s explanation of the educational purpose of the narrative account using dynamic visuals and giving real applications of how the accounts could be useful for students. Furthermore, the number of problem situations discussed during professional narratives was strongly associated with grasp and memory. These effects were also highly associated with the large number of interactions between the professionals and students during the narrative accounts. In addition, the shorter the accounts were, the less they were grasped and memorized by the students. These results provide food for thought regarding the design of training programs and the conditions for the production, narration and utilization of accounts by the students and participating professionals. Further research could investigate the characteristics of ergonomics students and the impact that their own cultural background may have when listening to such narrative accounts.
Keywords
- professional training
- professional narratives
- ergonomics
- teaching situation
- conditions and learning process
- episodic memory