Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory in Didactics, Education, and Training

Work, training, professional skills

With regard to professions characterized by human interaction and/or certain life sciences professions involving contact with animals or plants (such as those in education, healthcare, sports, social services, and agriculture), this area of focus examines work both as a system of constraints—sometimes a source of suffering—and as one of the most significant settings for social existence and self-fulfillment.

Overview

Work is a complex subject to grasp; today, it encompasses technical, organizational, human, and ethical aspects, as well as powerful issues of identity. To analyze work, we place equal emphasis on meaningful action, intentionality, and the interpretations of workers—viewed as intelligent, creative, social, and autonomous agents—and on the context in which this action takes place, which provides resources and also imposes constraints. This research area examines the activities of professionals at work or in training, as well as the activities of training recipients. These “people-oriented professions” require both technical skills and communication and interpersonal skills that are integrated into action but remain partly implicit, invisible, and opaque to observers and the actors themselves. This research area also examines the role and nature of knowledge in training, as well as how trainees develop their practices and/or construct knowledge and apply it in their work. To address these complex issues, we combine anthropological, activity analysis, sociological, and psychological approaches. From a methodological standpoint, the data sets analyzed in this research are complex, on the one hand because they combine different types of data (videos, interviews, participants’ work products, questionnaires), and on the other hand because they often involve very large data sets. This research area also aims to redefine the relationship between knowledge-oriented and transformation-oriented goals in the organization of work and training. From a sociological perspective, the aim is to understand the dynamics of actors (individuals and groups) in work situations and their interactions with the institutional, organizational, and human environment. From an ergonomic perspective, we seek to contribute to the design of vocational training programs based on the analysis of actual work activities, notably by constructing simulation scenarios to develop an approach focused on learning through situations rather than merely acquiring knowledge.

To this end, the initiative has three main objectives:

  • The primary objective is to understand work by analyzing it from two perspectives: first, the prescribed task—that is, what needs to be done—and second, the actual activity—that is, what workers actually do to fulfill the prescribed task. We start from the observation, drawn from extensive research in ergonomics, that there is a permanent and inevitable gap between the prescribed task and the actual activity, revealing the full complexity of work. Work activity, which can never be reduced to the application of instructions or pre-established rules, always goes beyond the task.
  • The second objective is to understand learning and development in and through work by analyzing activities in vocational training (those of trainees and trainers) within various programs designed to closely mirror real-world work situations (on-the-job scenarios, practice analysis, simulations, video-based training, serious games, “innovative” scenarios, etc.). The aim is to determine how the knowledge and skills acquired in these vocational training settings serve as sources of inspiration, creativity, and new learning in real-world work situations. The conditions for professional development are studied, in particular, through the understanding of processes of mimetic immersion, reflexive inquiry, and cooperation. Professional development is understood in terms of becoming, processes, and the actor-environment-other relationship through the analysis of transformations in work and/or training activities. The results of these studies contribute to a technological program aimed at designing, validating, modifying, and enriching existing or new training environments.
  • The third objective is to understand professional identities that are in the process of being formed(beginners), established, or evolving, by examining the intersecting discourses of practitioners regarding their work, their lived experiences, the contexts in which they operate, and the underlying logic of these contexts (actor-system). To speak of professionalism is to consider both the acquisition and consolidation of the professional skills necessary for practicing the trade and the unique, partly shared, way of “being in the trade” that involves a strong sense of identity. In fact, this approach takes into account the dynamics of professional identities and the issues of recognition that contribute, both individually and within groups, to the meaning given to action.

Summary prepared by Serge Leblanc and Thérèse Perez-Roux.

SOME CONTRIBUTORY PROJECTS

in progress

This item is currently being updated.

Past Projects

  • Supporting home health care in the regions of Occitanie through training programs (ACSADOM, Philippe Gabriel, and Elodie Roebroeck, 2022–2024).
  • Interprofessionalism and Partnerships: What New Practices Are Emerging in Initial Training? (INTERPROPART, Eric Maleyrot and Thérèse Perez-Roux, 2019–2022). 
  • Analysis of learning activities in simulated and real-world training environments: the case of driving a one- or four-horse team (OPTIMATTPRO, Serge Leblanc, 2016–2019).
  • Supporting the professional development of equestrian artists: ARtistes EQuestres Training Program (FARTEQ, Thérèse Perez-Roux, 2017–2022).
  • Professional Identity and Attitudes Toward the Profession Among Judo Teachers in France (IPRADEJU, Thérèse Perez-Roux, 2015–2019).
  • Redesigning Physical Therapy Programs and the Impact of the 2015 Reform on Educational Activities: Tensions, Compromises, and Developments (REMKAF, Thérèse Perez-Roux, 2016–2019).
  • Action research on the preservation and transmission of knowledge and skills related to traditional horse-drawn carriages (ATTRAD, Serge Lebanc and Guillaume Azéma, 2018–2019).

Existing and Contributory Seminars

  • Transdisciplinarity and Multi-Level Research in Education and Training: Theoretical and Methodological Issues
  • ViSA Days

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