Collegiality and collegiality competence of social and health care educators in vocational institutions and universities of applied sciences

Thesis event information

Date and time of the thesis defence

Topic of the dissertation

Collegiality and collegiality competence of social and health care educators in vocational institutions and universities of applied sciences

Doctoral candidate

MHSc Miro Koskenranta

Faculty and unit

University of Oulu Graduate School, Faculty of Medicine, Research Unit of Health Sciences and Technology

Subject of study

Nursing science

Opponent

Professor Elina Haavisto, University of Tampere

Custos

Professor Kristina Mikkonen, University of Oulu

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Collegiality and collegiality competence of social and health care educators in vocational institutions and universities of applied sciences

Social and health care educators need to have a broad range of competences in their work, such as pedagogical competence, collaboration competence and digital competence. Collegiality plays a strong role in all these competences, and is particularly emphasized in collaboration competence, where asking for advice, collaborative working methods and peer support are crucial. Increased collaboration is also reflected in team teaching, which has become a popular alternative to individual teaching.

Social and health care educators are also required to build and develop multidisciplinary and interprofessional cooperation networks for the development of education, working life and society. Through collaboration, educators can also enhance their own competences.

This doctoral dissertation describes and explains the collegiality and self-assessed collegiality competence of social and health care educators through the CollegialityComp-instrument.

The dissertation researched the experiences of social and health care educators on collegiality by interviewing educators from vocational and university of applied sciences and conducting a systematic mixed-method literature review based on previous literature. The results were used to develop the CollegialityComp instrument to describe the factors explaining the collegiality competence and competence of social and health care educators.

In the study, collegiality was seen as very broad and was thought to include collaboration, communication, and ethics. Social and health care educators were divided into three competence profiles (A, B, C) based on their collegiality competence, with good to intermediate levels of competence.

This was explained by the educators' education and current job title. The study found that educators' collegiality competence decreases as their level of education increases. Educators with the lowest competence were most likely to have a doctoral degree and to be a senior lecturer compared to other competence profiles. One explanatory factor may be the workload of social and health care educators, which limits their experience of the extent to which they can collaborate extensively with others.
Last updated: 23.1.2024