Session 1: Supporting the professions
Chair: Angela Clark
Dr. Bill Boyes
Sounding the Alarm: An Exploration of Professionalization within the Ontario Fire Service
The fire service is highly regarded by the community and is routinely recognized as a highly trusted occupation. The demands placed on the fire service have grown substantially in recent years due to neoliberal pressures, growing fiscal costs, accountability pressures, an expanding emergency response mandate, and the acquisition of additional non-emergency roles. This presentation explores the extent to which these changes are resulting in the professionalization of the Ontario fire service.
The findings were derived through interviews with leaders from Ontario and international fire services, the Ontario police and paramedic services, senior municipal officials, labour relations experts and higher education professors. This research suggests that the Ontario fire service may be approaching a critical juncture whereby it is forced to adapt to neoliberal pressures and pressures for occupational change to remain effective and become more professionalized, despite its entrenched nature as a long-standing hierarchically structured but non-professionalized institution. These pressures combined with growing calls for change are challenging the ingrained status quo. This research contributes to the literature on institutionalism and the professions through its exploration of an understudied institution. While the focus is the Ontario fire service, the findings may have implications for other fire services and similar institutions. It finds tensions between pressures for professionalization on the one hand, and neoliberal fiscal pressures on the other. These complexities contribute to firefighters embodying a quasi-professional status that gains legitimacy from the ‘heroic work’ it undertakes rather than by qualifications or credentials. Furthermore, the post-pandemic workplace and a newer generation of workers are producing institutional pressures that can potentially shift the entrenched fire service. This research sheds light on the Ontario fire service and reveals a complex institution facing a challenging trajectory.
Dr. Laura Capacchione
Dental Hygiene Curriculum and Core Competency Development: A Case Study of One Ontario College Program
The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed methods case study was to explore the dental hygiene curriculum at one Ontario College, referred to as DH College (pseudonym) to discover educator, student, and graduating student perceptions of teaching and learning strategies related to national core competency development. Dental hygiene programs across Canada use these entry-to-practice National Dental Hygiene Competencies to develop curricula. All full-time educators of the program were invited to participate in an online survey and interview. This study explored how participating educators (n=7) in the DH College program interpreted, integrated, and assessed student achievement of core national competencies in the classroom. Through document analysis the study explored how students (n=144) perceived learning experiences related to core competency development. And, through the use of an online survey, the study further explored how participating graduating students (n=20) self-assessed their abilities related to the core national competencies. The Capabilities Approach theoretical framework grounded this study. The conclusions drawn from the findings of this mixed methods case study suggest that the DH College curriculum supports the development of core national competencies which are: the dental hygienist as a professional, communicator and collaborator, critical thinker, advocate, and coordinator however, educators find it challenging to teach professionalism and advocacy in the classroom. Three of the seven educators interviewed felt that graduates are not attaining all of the 70 core ability-based outcomes at the level of national expectations. And, graduating students reported that they had gained no understanding or a less than a basic understanding from their program curriculum with respect to 21 (30%) of the 70 core national ability-based outcomes required for entry-to-practice into the profession. Furthermore, and most importantly, educators were not unanimous in their explicit understanding of what constituted basic attainment of the national ability-based outcomes. Though the findings are not generalizable beyond the case study program, an understanding of these findings has the potential to inform teaching and learning, policy, and practice, not just in the case study program, but other dental hygiene programs that seek to review their own programs with respect to the core National Dental Hygiene Competencies.
Keegan Smith
Exploratory descriptive study of New Recruit Police Officer Training for Dealing with High Risk, Low Frequency Events
New recruit police training in Canada dealing with high risk, low frequency events is designed to equip newly hired police officers with the capability to effectively handle significant, highly stressful situations with potentially fatal consequences. In this study Keegan is gathering data through semi-structured interviews at three Canadian law enforcement agencies. Participants include new recruit police officers who have recently successfully completed their training, Training Officers responsible for conducting and assessing new recruit officer training, as well as subject matter experts from various backgrounds with direct involvement in new recruit police officer training. He is conducting a thematic analysis to identify implications for policy and practice.