Formalizing the pragmatic conceptualizations of professionals, their diversity and evolution in order to re-design training courses. The case of livestock grazing management[Formaliser les conceptualisations pragmatiques de professionnels, leur diversité et leur évolution pour re‑concevoir des formations]

The skills that are necessary to act in a dynamic environment, and with unique work configurations, are mainly developed by professionals as they experience recurring or exceptional events during working activities. Farmers wishing to valorise natural vegetation to feed their herds therefore develop specific skills relating to their interaction with living beings and things- vegetation and animals- through their experiences with diverse seasons and years. This singular characteristic makes it difficult to de-contextualise, transpose and pragmatize the different types of knowledge mobilized (scientific, technical, and experiential knowledge). Understanding and representing the activity of professionals, in order that it might be developed, is an essential step in redesigning their training. In contributing to this issue, our article aims to formalize the pragmatic conceptualizations that organize grazing management, in order to design professional training. Based on a vocational didactic approach, we modeled the conceptual structures of a sample of breeders, characterized their diversity and their dynamics, and then confronted them with the reference knowledge transferred during a training system. In this way, we identified pragmatic concepts that professionals have in common, but which are often embedded in a network of different concepts, raising singular concerns and strategies. Our analysis also allowed us to observe, among professionals, the traces and difficulties in pragmatizing the reference knowledge relayed by development agents. Based on these results, we present a pedagogical experiment and its evolution over the course of a range of trainer experiences. These results open avenues for continued reflection on the articulation of collective training with tailor-made support for the professional development of each individual.