ABSTRACT
This chapter begins to weave together the empirical study and socio-material theory in the context of professional and practice learning. It describes the setting and orientation of this research within quality improvement in healthcare and professional education. Improvement science has been described as a gap between research (what is possible) and audit (what is actual), where research is exploratory and introduces new interventions, and audit is described as measuring against a standard. The Health Foundation defines improvement science as: the application of a range of basic and applied sciences, delivered through a partnership of researchers and those who work in and use health services, with the aim of creating new knowledge and promoting strategies for the implementation of evidence-based healthcare. Socio-material approaches have been used to explore knowledge and learning in interdisciplinary working practices in medical education as a way of moving away from the dominant language of individualism.
