Nienke Moolenaar’s research while affiliated with Ministry of Defense, Netherlands and other places

Clinician-scientists, physicians who conduct research, may fulfil a bridging role in networks of health care researchers and practitioners. Within clinician-scientists’ networks, knowledge sharing is thought to play a vital role in the continuing professional development of themselves and their colleagues. However, little is known about networks of clinician-scientists and how this impacts continuing professional development. Rooted in social capital theory, this study provides a mixed methods exploration of clinician-scientists’ networks. Ego-level social network data were collected via semi-structured interviews on professional interactions about evidence-based practice with 15 clinician-scientists in the area of general practice and elderly care. Quantitative analysis revealed that professional networks of clinician-scientists varied in size, composition, and frequency of interactions depending on appointed research time and experience. Less experienced clinician-scientists interacted most frequently with other clinician-scientists while experienced clinician-scientist experienced more sporadically with clinicians. Clinician-scientists with more research time interacted more frequently with scientists and had a slightly larger professional network than those with less research time. The thematic qualitative analysis revealed different decision-making processes of clinician-scientists on mobilising their social capital and connecting to others in the network: (1) deliberate decision about initiating connections; (2) reactive behaviour without a decision; (3) ad-hoc decision. Clinician-scientists exchange knowledge to enhance their own continuing professional development mainly but also contribute to the professional development of clinicians, scientists, and other clinician-scientists.

Prior research has shown the importance of collaborative culture as well as teacher job satisfaction and commitment in navigating complex school improvement processes. This study investigated the relationship between collaborative culture, affective commitment, and job satisfaction of teachers taking both collaborative cultures in the entire school, as well as in informal subgroups, into account. Survey data of 760 teachers, nested in 136 subgroups and 13 secondary schools, were analyzed using multilevel path analyses. Results show that collaborative culture in the informal subgroup is positively related to teachers' affective commitment and job satisfaction and that affective commitment is a mediator. The collaborative culture at the school level was not a significant predictor. School leaders need to be aware that there are, to some extent, subgroups within the school which develop their own collaborative culture through social contagion processes which impact job satisfaction and affective commitment to a greater extent than the school-level culture.

Clinician-scientists (CSs) are vital in connecting the worlds of research and practice. Yet, there is little empirical insight into how CSs perceive and act upon their in-and-between position between these socio-culturally distinct worlds. To better understand and support CSs’ training and career development, this study aims to gain insight into CSs’ social identity and brokerage. The authors conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 17, purposively sampled, CSs to elicit information on their social identity and brokerage. The CSs differ in how they perceive their social identity. Some CSs described their social identity strongly as either a research or clinical identity (dominant research or clinical identity). Other CSs described combined research and clinical identities, which might sometimes be compartmentalised, intersected or merged (non-dominant-identity). In the types of brokerage that they employ, all CSs act as representatives. CSs with a non-dominant identity mostly act as liaison and show considerable variability in their repertoire, including representative and gatekeeper. CSs with a dominant identity have less diversity in their brokerage types. Those with a dominant research identity typically act as a gatekeeper. Combining lenses of social identity theory and brokerage types helps understand CSs who have a dual position in-and-between the worlds of clinical practice and research. Professional development programs should explicitly address CSs’ professional identities and subsequent desired brokerage. Research and policy should aim to clarify and leverage the position of CSs in-and-between research and practice.

While the value of social capital for teaching seems paramount, a crucial question is how to shapethe necessary learning climate that allows beginning pre-service teachers to build and access suchsocial capital. A total of 321 pre-service teachers from Barcelona participated in a survey in-cluding social network questions, climate scales, and performance data.Findings reveal a significant relationship between pre-service teachers' social capital andperformance as well as professional competence. Also, results show that a collaborative andinnovative climate is positively related to pre-service teachers' performance and professionalcompetence as mediated through student's social capital. Thus, social capital plays a mediatingrole by explaining the relationship between a supportive learning climate in internship schoolsand pre-service teachers' performance. Link to the article: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ZlTR38nswSzCw

Purpose: Clinician-scientists are said to be well-placed to connect research and practice, but their broker role has been underexplored. This review sought to gain an understanding of the broker role of clinician-scientists. Method: The authors conducted a realist review to describe context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations associated with the broker role of clinician-scientists. CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Embase were searched between May and August 2017. Data were analyzed qualitatively; data synthesis was focused on assembling findings into CMO configurations. Results: Of an initial 2,241 articles found, 9 were included in the final review. Included papers show that clinician-scientists, in their broker role, achieve two organizational-level outcomes: an increased volume of clinically relevant, practically applicable research and increased evidence application to improve care. They also achieve the individual-level outcome of professional development as a researcher, clinician, and broker. Multidimensional skills and management support are necessary context factors. Mechanisms that contribute to outcomes include balancing economic and scientific interests and performing boundary-crossing activities. Four CMO configurations by which clinician-scientists achieve outcomes in brokering a connection between research and practice were identified. Useful program theories for explaining these are boundary crossing, social network, communities of practice, and diffusion of innovation theory. Conclusions: The mechanisms found may provide insight for interventions aiming to support clinician-scientists in their broker role. The authors expect that if more attention is paid to learning multidimensional skills and management support for the broker role is strengthened, stronger links between research and practice could be forged.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the extent professionals from the vocational sector are networked individuals. The authors explore how professionals use their personal networks to engage in a wide variety of learning activities and examine what social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to form personal informal learning networks. Design/methodology/approach This study applied a mixed-method approach to data collection. Social network data were gathered among school professionals working in the vocational sector. Ego-network analysis was performed. A total of 24 in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews were analyzed. Findings This study found that networked individualism is not represented to its full potential in the vocational sector. However, it is important to form informal learning ties with different stakeholders because all types of informal learning ties serve different learning purposes. The extent to which social mechanisms (i.e. proximity, trust, level of expertise and homophily) influence professionals’ agency to form informal learning ties differs depending on the stakeholder with whom the informal learning ties are formed. Research limitations/implications This study excludes the investigation of social mechanisms that shape learning through more impersonal virtual learning resources, such as social media or expert forums. Moreover, the authors only included individual- and dyadic-level social mechanisms. Practical implications By investigating the social mechanisms that shape informal learning ties, this study provides insights how professionals can be stimulated to build rich personal learning networks in the vocational sector. Originality/value The authors extend earlier research with in-depth information on the different types of learning activities professionals engage in in their personal learning networks with different stakeholders. The ego-network perspective reveals how different social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to shape informal learning networks with different stakeholders.

In research on teacher induction, scholars have pointed at the pivotal role of collegial support to overcome the challenges inherent to the first years of teaching. In this quantitative study, we extend current work by using a social network perspective to examine characteristics (i.e. network size, frequency and perceived usefulness) of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks. Moreover, we explore the extent to which these characteristics explain key factors affecting teacher retention, namely job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation to teach, and self-efficacy. An online survey was completed by 292 beginning primary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium). Social network data showed that, on average, they receive professional, emotional and social support from six colleagues each week and found this mostly useful. Regression analyses demonstrated that network size and perceived usefulness of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks were positively related to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation to teach, thus confirming the importance of collegial support in teacher induction. Frequency of support was not significant. Finally, no substantial relationship was found between collegial support and teachers’ self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for practice and policy are discussed.

Teachers’ feedback seeking is considered as important for their professional learning. This study aims to investigate which school leaders are sought out for informal feedback by teachers and what leadership characteristics might influence this choice in secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. Data from 436 teachers of 14 secondary schools are used for social network analysis and multilevel regression analyses. In these schools, the average size of the leadership team is eight, consisting of principals, assistant principals and teacher leaders. Results indicate that the frequency of teachers’ informal feedback seeking towards their leadership team is rather low. However, teachers turn the most towards their principals for informal feedback. Multilevel regression analyses show that transformational leadership seems to be the most influential characteristic for this choice. Instructional leadership is only influential for the informal feedback seeking from principals, while transformational leadership shows to be important for all three leadership categories (principal, assistant principals and teacher leaders). The article identifies several pathways for further research to extend our knowledge about informal feedback seeking of teachers in schools. Also for leadership development programmes implications are formulated including the needed attention on the topic of feedback provision for teachers.

This paper examines the extent to which school team members' professional relationships are affected by being part of a certain generational cohort. These professional relationships provide opportunities for intergenerational knowledge flows and can therefore be relevant for intergenerational learning. Nowadays these topics have gained more attention due to worldwide demographic changes such as increased retirement rates and high levels of teacher dropout. Data were gathered through a survey with socio-metric questions among 299 school team members in 15 elementary schools in the Netherlands. Using social network analysis, in particular p2 modelling, we analysed the effect of being part of a generational cohort on teachers' likelihood of having professional relationships in networks such as discussing work, asking and providing advice, and collaboration. Findings indicate that generational cohorts based on chronological age do matter in the formation of work related ties. These findings also support the importance of focusing on different professional networks since different age dynamics can be at play. Our findings also show that school team members of the youngest cohort tend to form intra-generational relationships, whereas older generational cohort members prefer inter-generational relationships. This study is innovative due to its application of social network analysis to investigate intergenerational knowledge flows.