Competence and Professional Expertise

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical controversies exist about the understanding and potentials of the concepts competence and professional expertise. In this chapter, both concepts will be thoroughly conceptualised and discussed. Competence and professional expertise are important as all professionals need to possess a high degree of competence or expertise in their specific job domain, to enable their own career development, and to stimulate laypersons of their own profession to have faith in their professional approach. In addition to this conceptualisation, different stages of competence or professional expertise will be discussed. As competence and professional expertise are interpreted to have the same meaning, the remainder of the chapter will focus on professional expertise. It is not only essential to discuss what is being learned, that is professional expertise, but also how one is learning, which is defined in this chapter as professional (expertise) development of employees. Therefore the chapter will continue with defining professional (expertise) development. Specific attention will be paid to the teaching profession, where professional (expertise) development is more important than ever. Because a difficult question for working organisations is which organisational conditions are significant for the further development of professional expertise of their employees, this chapter will end with a helpful overview of these ones that have proven to have predictive validity in this regard.

Consumers on the Job: Contextualization Crafting in Expert Services

“…To differentiate between the expertise of the provider and that of the consumer, we call these two types “content expertise” and “context expertise.” Informed by Evers and Van der Heijden (2017), we define content expertise as technical knowledge or skill obtained through education, training, or experience as part of a profession (in our case, medical). This expertise corresponds to the knowledge and procedural resources of the expert provider.…”

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Expertise Development: Implications for HRD

“…Some authors argued that a hallmark of expert behavior is an automatic performance of tasks that do not require conscious monitoring (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986) and is a result of many years of training and deliberate practice (Ericsson et al, 1993; Ericsson, 2005). For Evers & van der Heijden, 2017, professional expertise is a multidimensional construct that comprises “ declarative knowledge (‘knowing that’), procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’), and conditional knowledge (‘knowing when and where or under what conditions’)” (p. 87).…”

“…Depending on the domain they operate in, an expert is “somebody who obtains results that are vastly superior to those obtained by the majority of the population” (Gobet, 2015, p. 5). Other scholars emphasized that expert performance is associated with an intuitive grasp of situations, and superior pattern recognition ability in complex and uncertain situations (Benner, 1984; Evers & van der Heijden, 2017; Klein, 2004). Such ability enables an expert to “zero in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a wide range of unfruitful possible problem situations” (Benner, 1984, p. 406).…”

“…Such ability enables an expert to “zero in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a wide range of unfruitful possible problem situations” (Benner, 1984, p. 406). Evers & van der Heijden, 2017 describe a distinction between adaptive and routine expertise, arguing that at the adaptive expertise level, a person displays superior ability to apply previously learned procedures and models creatively and with a significant degree of flexibility.…”

Student teachers’ views of competence goals in vocational teacher education

“…Understanding competence goals is the basis of self-assessment and lifelong learning, which are an educated expert's core competencies (Day 2017;Evers and van der Heijden 2017). During their pedagogical studies, the students reflects on and assesses learning in relation to the competence goals.…”