Psychology of Professionalism - Essay Example

? The reflective practitioner Personal reflection According to Nansen, we constantly live in an environment that is surrounded by risks that are meant for us to take. Everything we get to engage in involves a certain type of risk. This will involve from business activities, to personal decisions we that we must make in life. One must weigh his or her options to make sure that the decision made will have a more positive impact than the ones abandoned. Personally I can conform to this based on the kind of life that I live. I either get to choose to work hard in my studies so as to make sure I get good grades, or choose to play and get the undesired results (STRUMMER & HENESON, 2008, 99). In this case, I cannot take the risk of not working hard with thinking that a miracle will happen, and I will pass. This is the exact thing that gets to happens in the world of sports. For a team to prosper, its members must take many risks that always make them get injured. We cannot fear taking risks because on one side lies getting injure. We should learn to look at the bright side that success lays. In reference to outdoor kinetic experience, different people get to have different experiences on different adventures. For example, one may vie fishing as a leisure activity; just for fun, while another person on the same boat will take fishing as a toll for measuring progress in that the other time he or she got two, this time the person wants to get three or four. This is what applies to people in the contemporary society. For example, I may consider education valuable because it will help me get a career while another person in the same class as me considers it necessary because it will help him or her get more knowledge and not for career entry. According to John Rawls, every living thing should have the capacity to define a life plan. Different people get to hold different perspective in life. They also desire to serve different purposes during their lifetime; someone would like to be a teacher and the other an engineer. To become these people, one must have a well laid out plan to achieve. It is not possible just to come up from nowhere and be an engineer. However, based on the direction life has taken in the previous past; I no longer share the same viewpoint and or ideology. I tend to think that in the present age, despite having a life plan, a person is not sure he or she will be able to follow it as intended. This is because life brings along many bottlenecks that one gets to redefine the position of the life plan they once drafted. Handling different types of data Data is the most valuable asset that an organization may have. It is due to this fact that information systems are made, so as to ensure efficient analysis of the data, its storage and security. As a professional individual, it is crucial that one knows how to handle and present data, portraying the intended information analysis. Below we get to analyze a data from a survey on availability of university school courses and other dependent factors. Figure 1: Data University’s Business School Course Availability Survey Category Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree Will you be satisfied if more sections are offered 0 2 9 9 13 Will you be more successful 4 3 12 7 7 Do you prefer to take business cources in the UCD 1 3 16 5 8 Sum 5 8 37 21 28 Average 1.666666667 2.666667 12.3333 7 9.333333333 Median 1 3 12 7 7 standard deviation 2.081665999 0.57735 3.51188 2 3.214550254 Figure 2: pictorial representation Pictorial representation of data is important due to a myriad of factors. The first reason is for easy analysis (AGRESTI, 2002,78). We can all conform that it is easier to deal that that is represented on a bar graph, rather than using the one on the spreadsheet. The second reason is for presentational purposes; when is representing data say to board of directors, it will be hard for them to conceptualize the progress of a company using raw data on a spreadsheet than on a bar graph. However, it is pertinent to understand that no any pictorial representation can be used at any time. They ought to be used appropriately: Some pictorial data representation is used when they need to be presented to individuals. It will be appropriate to use bar graphs than using line graphs. Pie charts will also be appropriate in such a situation. When the parties that are involved include data handling professionals, there will be no trouble using pictorial representations such as line graphs or compound graphs that entail a lot of information. This is because they have the ability to analyze the information presented. Collecting data using interviews: Are people in the outdoor sector professionals? Since time in memorial, a professional has been a term used to refer to those that sit under the office ceilings with wheeled office chairs and a desk in front of them. However, I have come to wonder about those who do not share the same professional setting as those in offices. They may include the bike messengers, the taxi drivers, military soldiers, and many more others. Do they earn the title of being referred to as professionals? In this light, I set out to interview a couple of individuals that belong to the outdoor workers and one will be surprised at the results one would come up with from such a research. Before we head down to the findings, below we get to look at the questions that one would respond to during the interviewing process. The questions were very open and appealing in order to ensure that I obtain reliable and honest answers. 1. What is your view on being referred to as a professional? 2. Are outdoor workers those in offices different simply because they share different working environment? 3. Would you like to work in an office setting? 4. Is it right to undermine people who work in other environments different from office setting? Data findings and analysis I managed to interview three individuals: a bike messenger, military personnel, a taxi driver and home care individual. All of these individuals had a different perspective of what comes into their mind when they hear the term professional. The summary below is a combination of all the results I obtained from all the interviewers. According to the bike messenger, he views himself as a professional since it does not mean that one has to necessarily work in an office to be one (COATES & WHITE, 2006,124). According to him, he has all the code of ethics that every other person has and deals with people in varying field. They always need his services so as to make their work possible. In this light he means that for one to be a professional, it is not a must that one does his or her work in the office (LEWIS-BECK, 2007,12). According to the military personnel, he does not view himself as a professional worker. He says he has no specified job purpose since he can do almost anything. This he says this even though he has an office that he can get to sit when he is not in outdoor operations. However he recognizes that is important that people be awarded the tittle like drivers. He says he does not prefer the office setting; he feels rather limited to freedom. The other person I found so interesting is the taxi driver. According to him, he considers himself a professional because driving is his career. His car roof is his ceiling and his dashboard the desk. He is very comfortable with his job and does not desire shifting to an office setting since he is comfortable with his work place. He also says it is not right to undermine someone because he does not work in an office environment. The last person I got to interview was a home care worker or a nannie. According to her, she is a professional because that’s what she does for a living. She conforms to the entire ethical requirement that her duties demands. The fact that she is assigned from a company makes her a professional. It does not mean that since she is networking from an office then she is not a professional. From the above data analysis, we can all conclude that professionalism does not depend on whether one works indoors or outdoors (AGRESTI, 2002,35). It is that one works on his or her career as supposed to and takes it as the work he does for a living. Reference LEWIS-BECK, M. S. (2007). Data analysis: an introduction. Thousand Oaks [u.a.], Sage. AGRESTI, A. (2002). Categorical data analysis. New York, NY [u.a.], Wiley. GOVAERT, G. (2009). Data analysis. London, ISTE. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10361138. LOWENDAHL, B. R. (2005). Strategic management of professional service firms. [Frederiksberg], Copenhagen Business School COATES, J., & WHITE, J. S. (2006). Technical vs. professional: definition or difference? Ann Arbor, Mich, University of Michigan. DYER, A. R. (2008). Ethics and psychiatry: toward professional definition. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press. MCCRAY, J. (2009). Nursing and multi-professional practice. Los Angeles, SAGE. RAMSAY, G. G., & SWEET, H. B. (2009). A creative guide to exploring your life: self-reflection using photography, art, and writing. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. STRUMMER, D., & HENESON, N. (2008). A personal reflection of the holocaust. Baltimore, Md, Aurich Press. WILLIS, J. (2005). Data Analysis and Presentation Skills an Introduction for the Life and Medical Sciences. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=232665. Read More