Maintaining Forest Practitioner Competence Through Continuing Education

0624-C1

Michael McLaughlan^[1] and Roxanne Comeau

Abstract

Forest practitioners have a responsibility to the profession and the public to maintain their professional competence in their respective area of practice. It is hoped that this sense of responsibility stems from their knowledge of and adherence to their professional organization’s code of ethics, but it is more likely that it is an instinctual professionalism. Regardless of the source, professional competence can be maintained in many ways (e.g. through continuing education) but there have been few attempts to quantify how much is required to avoid becoming professionally obsolete. Professional organizations across Canada have assigned seemingly arbitrary levels of continuing education requirements for their membership to maintain their competency, but upon closer inspection, these rates may reflect theoretical cerebral needs based on a knowledge half-life of ten years. In addition to the individual, the professional organization also shares some responsibility in the maintenance of competency. Professional associations need to set the standard on continuing education requirements and assess and assist members in meeting the standards. Whether a regulatory body mandates a voluntary or mandatory continuing education programme for their members, there is a requirement to ensure the members are meeting their regulatory standards, and that public interest is at the forefront.

The Need

Forest practitioners have a responsibility to the profession and the public to maintain their professional competence in their respective area of practice. "Rapid technological change, the social significance of forest resources, increased public awareness, higher environmental standards, greater professional demands and the ever-changing competencies required, dictate continuous learning and development if individuals and the profession are to better serve society." (CIF/IFC 1995). While serving society is one role of the forestry professional, another is to maintain the sustainability of the environment. If we as professionals are to manage the environment or rather manage our actions on the environment, then we should be aware of the implications of our actions and the response of the ecosystems. One of the best methods of improving our knowledge in these areas is to learn from the experiences of others through continuing education.

As information is more readily available through improved communications (such as the internet) there is a greater public expectation that professionals maintain their competency by being aware of the latest information. However, "while the public may not be entitled to demand of all practitioners that they keep abreast of the most avant-garde developments in their fields, it certainly has the right to expect that they will meet improved standards with reasonable speed and provide the best care and services possible." (Slayton and Trebilcock 1978). Similarly the Ontario Professional Foresters Association (OPFA) identifies that the responsibility for maintaining competency lies with its members (OPFA 2002).

Aside from public and organizational expectations, we as professionals have an ethical responsibility to maintain our competency. In fact, most Canadian professional organizations refer specifically to continuing education or maintenance of competency in their organizations code of ethics or codes of conduct. Additionally, we see that requirements for continuing education are usually inherent in legislation and are characteristic of all self-regulating professions. A principle of strategic direction six of Canada’s National Forest Strategy 1998-2003, even goes so far as to state that "Continuing education, training and the resources to meet these needs are essential to maintaining a skilled workforce and are the shared responsibility of employees, employers, governments, labour and educational institutions." (CCFM 1998).

The Role of Professional Organizations

In Canada, seven associations of Registered Professional Foresters (RPF) or ingénieurs forestiers (ing. f.) are established and six are granted authority under specific provincial legislation to administer occupational regulation. One association (Newfoundland) is granted authority by a Ministerial letter. There are also three provincial forest technical/technologists associations with the mandate to regulate their members. A Canadian technicians and technologists association with provincial affiliates also exists in Canada, that have forest technicians/technologists as their members (Gauthier et al. 2002). Their provincial acts, code of ethics and missions statements, as well as section 6.10 of the Mutual Recognition Agreement signed by the RPF Associations and the CIF/IFC address continuing education either explicitly or indirectly (Anon. 2001). Examples of organizations promoting continuing educations amongst it’s membership can be seen in the extracts from the missions, mandates, and objectives from Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Newfoundland’ s professional forester or forest technologist associations (Table 1).

However, only three Canadian Provincial associations have an approved mandatory CE program: the OPFA, the Registered Professional Foresters Association of Nova Scotia, and the New Brunswick Forest Technician Associations. Though the OPFA does recognize continuing education to be voluntary for their members who no longer work within the profession. In contrast, the College of Alberta Professional Foresters and the College of Alberta Professional Forest Technologists requires a mandatory reporting of activities, but zero activities constitute a valid report. Lack of compliance to continuing education in these mentioned associations, could result in a disciplinary action.

Table 1. Extracts of Continuing Education/Competency from forest regulatory bodies in Canada.

As highlighted above, one of the common threads amongst these organizations is the need for continuing education, professional development, or collectively, maintenance of a professional’s competence. Each of these organizations or institutions helps ensure its professional capacity either through voluntary or legislated continuous forest education programs. In addition to the provision of CE assessment or reporting programs, some organizations provide opportunities to fulfill the requirements. The CIF/IFC maintains a national program to recognize member’s efforts in achieving 150 hours of continuing education credits over a 3-year period. It also publishes a professional and technical journal and provides continuing education opportunities (e.g., workshops, seminars and conferences) through its network of sections.

By means of comparison to other professions, the Canadian Bar Association, states as one of it’s rules in the code of professional conduct that "Competence involves more than an understanding of legal principles: it involves an adequate knowledge of the practice and procedures by which principles can be effectively applied. To accomplish this the lawyer should keep abreast of developments in all branches of law wherein the lawyer’s practice lies." (CBA 1987). To support these ends within their organization, the Canadian Bar Association has a continuing legal education program that offers symposium, conferences and courses for it’s members in addition to an online learning library (CBA 2002).

The Canadian Council of Professional Engineers notes that, "it is recognized that engineers work in a changing and dynamic environment. The need to maintain competence in one's area of expertise will drive the ongoing acquisition and assimilation of knowledge. To be relevant, the knowledge gained must be focused on current or intended future professional activity. There is no single method for maintaining and enhancing the currency of one's knowledge in a specific area of practice. The unique circumstances of each engineer, and association, will dictate the means by their licensees remain up-to-date."(CCPE 2002).

Similarly, the Saskatchewan Society of Medical Laboratory Technologists has mandatory requirements of its membership to participate in their Professional Improvement Program. This program includes provisions to obtain continuing education credits by a variety of educational and professional activities (SSMLT 2000). It is important to note that the medical technologists recognize that continuing competence can be realized in a variety of ways. All of Canada’s forestry professional organizations with continuing education (CE) programs also recognize a number of categories of continuing forestry education.

Continuing Education

The most common category of CE is attendance at formal learning events in forestry or forestry related topics presented as seminars, conferences, courses, technical sessions and workshops. Typically this category is more highly valued and few organizations impose a maximum number of contact hours that can be accrued in this category. Other categories that typically do have maximum claimable contact hours include:

• Organized formal education in topics areas outside forestry but within the professional realm (e.g., computer courses, accounting, business, leadership),

• Development, preparation, and presentation of course, conference or workshop material,

• Preparation and writing of forestry related articles or publications,

• Self-direct learning through reading of material or viewing of audio-visual material,

• Holding elected or appointed office or active committee assignment in professional organizations, and

• Practicing in one’s chosen field.

Most Canadian professional associations credit the above forms of learning at similar values, but there are subtle differences in the amount of contact hours that are required. The Registered Professional Foresters Association of Nova Scotia requires that members accrue 150 contact hours over three years (RPFANS 2002) while the Association of British Columbia Registered Professional Foresters Association encourage members to accrue 150 contact hours over 5 years (ABCPF 2002b). These thresholds of competence are somewhat arbitrary in nature, but are considered to be reasonable time allotments rather than some cerebral measure or rate of information change. If based on the average number of work hours in a year, maintenance of competency requires an investment of 2 to 3 percent of our work-time for the aforementioned contact hour requirements.

How much Continuing Education is required to remain competent?

Stephen Covey (1985) has described a ratio of Production-to-Production Capability (i.e., P/PC) and notes that a certain balance must be struck between these components to maintain optimum-operating levels, both personally and professionally. We can interpret the P/PC components as professional judgment and continuing education. For without continuing education, our professional judgment is not as sharp as it could be. Covey notes that excessive focus on the Production side of the equation results in excessive wear on the producer (e.g., poor health, burn-out, poor judgment) while too much focus on Production Capability reduces the amount of production (e.g., eternal students). To quantify Covey’s ratio for our field of practice (assuming 150 contact hours of CE over 3 years) we see that we are employing an approximate 30:1 ratio of P/PC (or work hours/CE hours). But is this enough to avoid professional obsolescence?

Figure 1. The acquisition, depreciation, and maintenance of knowledge over time.

Many organizations consider the half-life of forestry education to be 5 to 10 years (OPFA 2001; SAF 2002). However, we can maintain our current knowledge and build on it so long as we continue to practice forestry and participate in some form of continuing education. This concept can be illustrated in Figure 1 where we see the initial building of our knowledge base through some form of schooling (e.g., four years earning an undergraduate forestry degree) and the subsequent depreciation of the value of that knowledge due to technological advancements and new developments (Shapero 1985; Knight 1997).

Given the estimated rates of technical knowledge depreciation, how many hours of learning would be appropriate to maintain our base or competent level. If it took 896 instruction hours (28 hours per week * 32 weeks/year) per year for four years to accumulate a baseline of knowledge (e.g. obtaining a Bachelors of Science in Forestry) and the half-life of this knowledge is about 10 years (i.e., a decay rate of approximately 5% of our baseline knowledge per year for the first ten year period following graduation), then the number of CE hours required per year to maintain our relevancy can be posed as the following ratio:

The authors realize the weaknesses in this calculation and assumptions, however it does illustrate that the theoretical continuing education requirements are similar to the requirements currently encouraged by most forest practitioner associations (e.g., 150 hours over three years or 50 hours per year). While graduation is used in this example as the baseline of information, it does not imply that all the information has been obtained at the on-set of ones career.

Assessment of competency by professional associations

Assessment of competency is the responsibility of both the practitioner and their professional organization. Together they should assess continued competency requirements, particularly under regulated acts. Voluntary bodies, such as the CIF/IFC help members assess their individual CE status against common standards through its CE program and provides continuing education opportunities to practitioners.

The Ontario Professional Foresters Association (OPFA) defines a standard for their members under two components, 1) an association-defined component, and 2) a member-defined component. The association-defined component enhances the member's general forestry awareness. The purpose is to ensure that all members remain informed and current with respect to the broader forestry subject and with aspects of it essential to the practice of forestry in Ontario. Subjects on which current awareness is required include new and revised forestry legislation and policy, emerging approaches to forest ecosystem and landscape management, and changing economic and social pressures affecting forest management (OPFA 2002). Under the member-defined component, no CE targets are identified however members are required to meet the competency standards established by other agencies.

It is important to note though, that knowledge developed from continuing education activities must be incorporated into practice in order to complete the continuous improvement loop.

Conclusion

• While participation in formal continuing education programs is largely voluntary in Canadian forestry organizations, it is our adherence to our code of ethics that ensures participation.

• The half-life of technical forestry knowledge is likely in the order of 5-10 years or a decay rate of about 5% of our knowledge per year for the first 10 years after schooling.

• Maintenance of a Production/Production Capability ratio of 30:1 (i.e., 150 contact hours over a three-year period) is likely sufficient for the maintenance and even modest accumulation of knowledge to keep forestry professionals technically competent.

• Competency (knowledge) can be maintained through active practice of our science & art and through continuing education.

• Continuing education can have a variety of forms from formal learning events to holding elected office or committee work in our professional organizations.

• Professionals have a responsibility to maintain their competence in their field of expertise and their professional associations are responsible for setting competency standards and assessing member competence.

Literature Cited

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