Development of Professional Concepts Through Work Analysis: Tech Diving Under the Loop of Activity Clinic

This article deals with conceptual development in an emerging activity, Technical diving. Tech divers are equipped with innovative, complex machines (the “rebreathers”) to perform deep dives. The
developmental methodology of cross self-confrontation was used to investigate the psychological dimensions of safety in diving with a group of volunteers (divers and instructors). One sequence of these data helps us analyze carefully the development of one concept in use in this milieu, the “confidence in the machine.” Building on 30 years of French-speaking research in work analysis on conceptualization in the work activity, we highlight the conflicting nature of the professional concepts as well as their multifunctionality. In the sequence analyzed in this article, the conceptual development takes the form of the discursive discovery of this complexity, which may open new possibilities for action (here, through the transmission of renewed concepts to other practitioners). The argumentative logics of the dialogical framework requires from the participants that they go beyond well-established knowledge to be able to convince both the researcher and their colleague. However, the stabilization of the concept emerging in this debate is related to its double anchoring: anchoring both in the emotions of the participants and in the professional genre of the milieu. This article shows the potential of the developmental methodology of cross self-confrontations in conceptual development: combining careful observation of routine behaviors, comparisons of personal habits, and thorough discussion of convergences and discrepancies, the methodology encourages reflexive practice and conceptual renewal.