Professional standing is maintained, and the review of work is where it is exercised

Chartered status and recorded continuing development are the profession's public claim that a practitioner can be trusted. The duty they stand for is working within one's competence and keeping it alive.

This tenth of ten units, after the ninth recorded the legal limits, argues that professional standing is maintained rather than held, and that a senior's review of a colleague's work decides whether a junior learns the standard or learns to avoid it.

A title records a trajectory, not a current competence

Competence is mostly acquired on the job and rarely in a course. Eraut (2004) built frameworks for this informal learning. He decomposed the terms professionals use for it, learning from experience, tacit knowledge and transfer, and asked what is learned and under whose influence. What it names is largely unplanned.

Reissner and Armitage-Chan (2024) reviewed 77 empirical articles on professional identity formation across 15 professions and 23 countries. They organised the identity work they found into four categories: becoming, aligning, exploring and struggling. Their typology treats formation as observable work. It names a failure mode, struggling, that chartership frameworks have no slot for.

Expertise is manufactured, but the recipe is thinner than the slogan

Professional development rests on the claim that expertise is made. Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer (1993) argued that expert performance is the product of prolonged deliberate practice. They found that differences among elite performers track the amount of such practice, and that traits once attributed to talent are largely its result.

Macnamara, Hambrick and Oswald (2014) later meta-analysed that literature. They found practice explained 26 per cent of the variance in games, 21 per cent in music, 18 per cent in sports, 4 per cent in education and under 1 per cent in professions. They concluded that practice is important but not as important as had been argued. The habit is worth building, but the variation in professional work comes from elsewhere.

Most development passes through a relationship

Kram (1985) described mentoring as carrying career functions such as sponsorship and exposure, and psychosocial functions such as role modelling and acceptance. Those functions change as a career progresses. A senior who corrects an artefact also grants or withholds exposure and models what counts as good.

Eby and colleagues (2008) meta-analysed youth, academic and workplace mentoring together. They found it associated with a wide range of favourable behavioural, attitudinal, relational, motivational and career outcomes, though the effect size is generally small. The quality of the daily review therefore matters more than the scheme.

Lave and Wenger (1991) supply the mechanism from five apprenticeships. They studied Yucatec midwives, Vai and Gola tailors, United States Navy quartermasters, meat cutters, and the non-drinking alcoholics of Alcoholics Anonymous. They found that newcomers learned the practice of a community rather than knowledge held in a head. Learning moved from the edge of the work towards the middle as the newcomer took on more of it. They called that process legitimate peripheral participation. Two of the five had no master and apprentice at all. Midwives and quartermasters learned from the whole setting. The five are studies of apprenticeships rather than of chartered professionals. The transfer to a design team's review is therefore an analogy, not a finding.

Seniority owes more than the artefact, and what it owes keeps changing

The standard a senior holds is wider than the artefact in front of them. Lindberg and colleagues (2024) ran co-design workshops with ten design leaders in Sweden. They found that those leaders regarded a lack of awareness of design's ethical dimensions as one of the main problems, and described strategies for making the ethical question visible.

Accessibility is the sharpest test of that duty. Marathe and Piper (2025) interviewed 20 blind and low-vision workers in technology companies. They described an accessibility paradox: the tension between the productivity and profit orientation of those firms and their wish to hire and retain disabled workers. The paradox plays out in digital infrastructure, accommodation processes and assumptions about ability. A standard asserted in a code is not the same as a standard in the infrastructure.

What must be kept current is changing. Han and Kang (2026) identified and validated the competencies UX designers need with generative artificial intelligence. They observed six practitioners designing user journey maps, and validated the result with a Delphi study of nine experts. They structured the competencies around contextual understanding, interaction and trust. They arrived at thirteen sub-competencies, including adaptive use of the tool and reflection on the designer's own judgement. A development plan that does not track the move records the wrong history.

Review is the instrument, and it cuts both ways

Feedback is not automatically an improvement. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) meta-analysed 607 effect sizes drawn from 23,663 observations. They found that feedback interventions raised performance on average, at an effect size reported as d = 0.41, but that more than a third reduced it. Their explanation is positional. Feedback becomes less effective as it moves attention closer to the self and away from the task.

Hattie and Timperley (2007) turned the pattern into a workable model. Effective feedback answers three questions: where the learner is going, how they are going and where to next. It operates at the level of the task, the process, self-regulation or the self. Their review concludes that feedback aimed at the self is least effective.

The critique as taught can teach the wrong norms

Designers learn to be reviewed in the studio critique, which does not always teach the right lesson. Dannels and Martin (2008) built a typology of feedback in design studio critiques. They compared its frequencies across studios from novice to expert. They found the feedback socialised students into relationships and decision-making identities that tracked their academic stage. They argue that this may complicate the critique's pre-professional purpose.

Peer review is not a weaker substitute. Fleischmann (2025) studied online peer critique with 90 undergraduate visual communication design students. He found the process collaborative, exchanging tacit and explicit knowledge, with the technology giving students confidence as observers and participants.

Contested question: does review transmit a shared standard or assert one?

The literature agrees that review shapes practice and disagrees about whether it transmits a standard anyone could check. One position holds that review is a technique whose quality can be specified and improved. Hattie and Timperley (2007) set out what effective feedback does, and Fleischmann (2025) shows peer critique moving tacit knowledge into the open. Eby and colleagues (2008) find measurable if modest benefits from developmental relationships.

A second position holds that review is as likely to damage as to develop. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found more than a third of feedback interventions reduced performance. The harm grows as attention moves towards the self, which is where a judgement of a person's work lands when the reviewer is careless.

A third position holds that the dominant review genre serves the institution rather than the work. Dannels and Martin (2008) found the studio critique socialising students into identities that tracked academic stages. The standard transmitted may therefore be the academy's rather than the profession's, and it was tested on students and on professionals of working age, which says little about how it lands on an older colleague.

What would settle the disagreement is a study that shows whether review transmits a standard or asserts one. It would track reviewed practitioners over time against a criterion the reviewer and the reviewed agreed in advance, and measure whether the two converged on it. No study of that kind appears in this unit's list. The dispute stays open.

The evidence is strong on the mechanism and absent on the outcome. The meta-analysis of 607 effect sizes by Kluger and DeNisi is the firmest result here; the claim that review transmits a shared standard rests on one critique typology and one course. While the dispute is open, a designer should review against a criterion agreed in advance and aim feedback at the task rather than the person. The strongest objection is that the standard cannot be fixed in advance, because if good work shifts with its tools, a criterion set now entrenches yesterday's practice.

Where the argument is heading

The direction of travel is towards treating development and review as things that can be designed and evaluated rather than assumed. Reissner and Armitage-Chan (2024) offer their typology as a heuristic for educators supporting identity formation. Lindberg and colleagues (2024) describe leaders who build structures rather than issue values. Han and Kang (2026) show the competency list itself being rebuilt around new tools.

The sources this unit rests on

• Dannels, D. P. and Martin, K. N. (2008). Critiquing Critiques. Journal of Business and Technical Communication. doi:10.1177/1050651907311923 Analysed feedback in design studio critiques, building a typology and comparing it across studios from novice to expert. Found the feedback socialised students into identities that tracked their academic stage rather than a professional setting.
• Eby, L. T., Allen, T. D., Evans, S. C., Ng, T. and DuBois, D. L. (2008). Does mentoring matter? A multidisciplinary meta-analysis comparing mentored and non-mentored individuals. Journal of Vocational Behaviour. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2007.04.005 (the published title spells that word in the American form) Meta-analysed youth, academic and workplace mentoring together, finding a wide range of favourable behavioural, attitudinal, relational, motivational and career outcomes, though the effect size is generally small. Is the unit's evidence that developmental relationships help modestly.
• Eraut, M. (2004). Informal learning in the workplace. Studies in Continuing Education. doi:10.1080/158037042000225245 Develops frameworks for informal learning at work, decomposing terms such as learning from experience, tacit knowledge and transfer and asking what is learned and under whose influence. Is the unit's claim that competence is largely acquired on the job.
• Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T. and Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.100.3.363 Argues that expert performance results from prolonged deliberate practice, that differences among elite performers relate closely to the amount of such practice, and that traits once attributed to talent are largely its product. Is the unit's founding claim that expertise is manufactured rather than discovered.
• Fleischmann, K. (2025). Making tacit knowledge explicit: the case for online peer feedback in the studio critique. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. doi:10.1007/s10798-024-09911-8 Studied online peer critique with 90 undergraduate visual communication design students and found the process collaborative, exchanging both tacit and explicit knowledge, with the technology giving students confidence as observers and participants. Is the unit's claim that peer review develops both the work and the reviewer's judgement.
• Han, Y. and Kang, J. (2026). Identification and Validation of Key Competencies for UX Designers in Generative AI Utilization: The User Journey Map Design Process. Archives of Design Research. doi:10.15187/adr.2026.05.39.2.209 Identified the competencies UX designers need with generative artificial intelligence by observing six practitioners designing user journey maps and validating the result with a Delphi study of nine experts. Found three dimensions, contextual understanding, interaction and trust, comprising thirteen sub-competencies.
• Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. doi:10.3102/003465430298487 Reviews the evidence on feedback and proposes a model in which effective feedback answers three questions, where the learner is going, how they are going and where to next, at the level of the task, the process, self-regulation or the self. Concludes that feedback aimed at the self is the least effective.
• Kluger, A. N. and DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254 Meta-analysed 607 effect sizes from 23,663 observations and found feedback interventions improved performance on average, at an effect size reported as d = 0.41, but that more than a third decreased performance. Is the unit's central evidence that feedback is not automatically good.
• Kram, K. E. (1985). Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organisational Life. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman. https://archive.org/details/mentoringatworkd0000kram (the published title spells that word in the American form) Describes mentoring as offering career functions such as sponsorship and exposure and psychosocial functions such as role modelling and acceptance, which change across career stages. Is the unit's account of the relationship through which competence is transmitted.
• Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815355 Develops legitimate peripheral participation from studies of Yucatec midwives, Vai and Gola tailors, United States Navy quartermasters, meat cutters and non-drinking alcoholics. Argues learning is movement towards full participation in a community's practice.
• Lindberg, S., Rossitto, C., Knutsson, O., Karlstrom, P. and Mannikko Barbutiu, S. (2024). Doing Good Business? Design Leaders' Perspectives on Ethics in Design. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. doi:10.1145/3633067 Ran co-design workshops with ten design leaders in Sweden on how they cultivate ethically responsible design, and found they regard a lack of awareness of design's ethical dimensions as a main problem. Is the unit's evidence that ethical responsibility belongs to seniority.
• Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z. and Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/0956797614535810 Meta-analysed studies relating deliberate practice to performance across five domains, finding practice explained 26 per cent of the variance in games, 21 per cent in music, 18 per cent in sports, 4 per cent in education and under 1 per cent in professions. Concludes that practice is important but not as important as had been argued.
• Marathe, A. S. and Piper, A. M. (2025). The Accessibility Paradox: How Blind and Low Vision Employees Experience and Negotiate Accessibility in the Technology Industry. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. doi:10.1145/3757666 Interviewed 20 blind and low-vision workers in technology companies and describe an accessibility paradox, the tension between the productivity and profit orientation of those firms and their wish to hire and retain disabled workers. Is the unit's counter to the claim that accessibility is a compliance matter.
• Reissner, S. and Armitage-Chan, E. (2024). Manifestations of professional identity work: an integrative review of research in professional identity formation. Studies in Higher Education. doi:10.1080/03075079.2024.2322093 Reviewed 77 empirical articles from 15 professions and 23 countries and induced a four-fold typology of professional identity work: becoming, aligning, exploring and struggling. Is the unit's synthesis of how professional identity is formed and supported.