Browsing by Author "Lindström, Aino"

Earlier studies have shown that not all of the university degrees make an expert. Students more likely grow into expertise through work experience. University students strive to develop their professional expertise in trainee programmes, where they have a possibility to suit the theory to action. During the internship it is possible to accumulate skills that may not be possible to learn just through university studies. From this point of view, I examine the views of four law students on their on-the-job learning as well as the development of their professional expertise and competence during the internship. My material consists of four semi-structured theme interviews. All of my interviewees worked during the interviews as an associate trainee in the same company. In my research, I examine what factors, according to the trainees' views have influenced the growth and development of their competence during the traineeship and also how they could improve the growth and development during the peri-od. The method that I have used in my research is content analysis. My research results are presented in subchapters that are based on to categories that I constructed through content analysis. The categories were influence of the work environment, colleagues’ influence, influence of development discussions and the influence of feedback to development of professional expertise. In my results I also examine the factors that were seen as conductive to the development of professional expertise and competence. From my results can be seen that trainees’ understandings about the factor that influence to on-the-job learning, were quite similar to each other. My results show that the most important factor for the trainees’ development of professional expertise was community support and the trust in themselves and their learning potential. Working with more experienced and professional employee was also seen to improve the growth of learning during the internship. The positive and creative feedback from the work community was also seen as a positive factor.