Intuition in professional and practice-based learning
pp. 807-834
in: Stephen Billett, Christian Harteis, Hans Gruber (eds), International handbook of research in professional and practice-based learning, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
Intuition is important across multiple domains of professional practice and warrants greater attention from researchers who are concerned with learning processes in professional and practice-based settings. Recent developments in the brain and behavioural sciences offer compelling conceptual and theoretical bases upon which models of intuitive ways of knowing may be integrated into the study of formal and informal learning processes. The study of intuition has the potential to offer new insights into how professional and practice-based learning is achieved and how it may be leveraged more effectively in workplace settings. The focus of this chapter is the business management occupational domain but much of what is discussed applies also to other domains of practice. The chapter: reviews the history of intuition research and its relevance for the practice of business and management; defines and theorizes intuition in terms of recent advances in the study of cognition from a dual-processing perspective; and examines the particular relevance of intuition for professional and practice-based learning in terms of "intuition-as-expertise', relationships between insight and intuition, and individual differences in intuition as dimension of cognitive style. The chapter concludes by considering some of the methodological challenges for intuition research and the practical implications for professional and practice-based learning.