A University Learning Experience for Adult Educators in Higher Education: from a Research-Based Approach to a Guidance Model Focused on Professional Identity

In Italy, the university training of education professionals currently consists of a three-year bachelor's degree program for educators and a five-year master's degree program for adult educators.Educational work does not simply consist of direct relationships with the people intended to benefit from it: the provision of educational services demands a significant level of coordination, planning, and organization. In Italy, these functions are performed by adult educators, that is to say, professionals with a Master's Degree who are specialists in educational processes. The specific role of these professionals is to design, manage and evaluate educational services: they may be employed as coordinators, directors, counsellors, or supervisors in the field of education.Italian adult educators must therefore receive training in a range of skills and competences, given that they may be required to fulfil a variety of different roles.This paper presents and analyses the practical training component in the university training of Italian adult educators, consisting of both e-learning and group sessions. The design of this component was underpinned by a number of generic assumptions, the most important of which is that educators must develop research skills if they are to fully attain the required professional competence.Specifically, undertaking and conducting research requires the ability to analyze contexts, identify relevant themes, construct and deconstruct issues, and deal with multiple dimensions of knowledge (both theoretical and practical). Designing and implementing a research project in an educational context can make a key contribution to mastering the main skills required by an educational counsellor, supervisor or coordinator. Asking students to carry out research implies viewing them as capable of identifying their own learning interests and developing a clear vision of their professional futures, in other words, as students with agency who are prepared to abandon a purely passive stance.After this model had been pilot tested for one year, we conducted an evaluation based on feedback received from the participants. The students reported experiencing an unanticipated level of disorientation, which had not been easy for them to cope with. More specifically, they mentioned difficulties in connecting the different perspectives encountered in the course of their studies, recognizing their own competences and negotiating their role with external institutions. Overall, they were disoriented in relation to their own learning interests and future professional identity. These dimensions could not be taken for granted and demanded a space in which to be discussed. The feedback from the evaluation thus led us to look more closely at how the university goes about organizing and managing professional training programs. The role of higher education is changing and the traditional distinctions between formal, non-formal and informal learning called into question. Personal knowledge and transversal skills, as well as the ability to manage a composite and changing professional identity, connect experience acquired across different contexts (formal and non-formal), and identify and construct competences are becoming increasingly relevant. This means that the notion of competence should not be viewed from a purely instrumental perspective but needs to be discussed at multiple levels.Fostering this kind of reflective process means caring for the "third mission" assigned to universities: that of developing and promoting lifelong and lifewide learning.