Development of Personal Professional Theories: from Higher Vocational Education into Beginnings of Professional Careers

This article explores the problem how Personal Professional Theories (PPTs) develop. PPT development of nine junior accountants and nine novice teachers was monitored by repeated measurements over a period of one-and–a-half year, from the last year of vocational education until the second year of their professional careers. Concept maps were used at three moments to test hypotheses derived from theories on expertise development. It could be concluded that on average PPTs became more complex, the PPTs of teachers also became richer, but the generality of PPTs did not significantly increase. (Dis)appearance of concepts and changes in their importance were observed and appeared dependent on the professional environment of the participants. The findings indicate that PPT development is an important manifestation of expertise development and the concept map method appears suited to reveal it