Literature Use for this Practitioner (prepared draft for thesis, 2004, Dianne Allen)

p.1

Literature Use for this Practitioner Dianne Allen My first step in an investigation is to gather data/information about what is new and unknown to me - the problem that has arisen for me. The second step is to analyse and synthesise the information gained from the gathering process, with a view to considering: Where does this lead me?; What is a reasonable action outcome addressing the problem that has arisen for me? Chapters 2 and 3 of my draft thesis mirror this kind of investigatory process. I indicate my findings from a general review of the recent literature of the field focused towards this study. In the process of reaching that point, I examined the following for each of the identified components - learning, inquiry and evaluation: Selected stories, derived from my practice experience, which demonstrate the way in which certain aspects of learning, inquiry and evaluation have become distinct and salient for me. What are the essential aspects of learning, inquiry and evaluation that I need to focus on as I seek to identify its practice implications. Some of that examination includes acknowledging my currently formed understanding of these concepts - the premises I take into the process. Once I have introduced, scoped and refined the issues that I am engaging with in a study, I then seek to take into account the work of others relevant to my aim of improving my practice. There are a number of ways to approach and use the literature in scholarship: 1. To scope the field and place a particular inquiry in its relevant context, indicating in what way it builds on current knowledge, and/or fills an identifiable gap 2. To confirm that there is no previous study of a particular issue in a way that answers the inquirers question about that issue 3. To identify what previous study of a particular issue has found, and to engage in critical review of such findings: how soundly based are they?; how relatable are they to the particulars of a practitioners practice?; when assessed by the practitioner do they suggest reasonable action to try in-action? 4. To undertake an intentional survey of the extant literature, to gather, to converge, to engage in critical analysis of the work of other scholars in the field, and perhaps generate a novel synthesis moving the field forward. Examples that come to mind that are associated with my inquiry interests include (Candy, 1991; Abraham, 1994). 5. If an inquirer has a clear hypothesis, the literature can be used to test the hypothesis with the documented findings of others in the field. Where there is an appreciable body of literature on an issue it can be extensive enough to make the task of comprehensive review a thesis in its own right. Given the body of literature on learning, on inquiry, on evaluation, I do not claim to be comprehensive in my review. Rather, I have had to apply the risky practical criteria to this unit of the study (being limited, by time and energy resources available, to only some of the literature). One technique in applying a practical frame is to look closely at those items which endeavour to survey the field. The results of those reviews are then taken on trust, on authority, providing I am satisfied that the methodology of the review was soundly based, and the interpretation was a fair one. But note, at the point of taking the results on trust, I am reliant on someone elses sense of validity, reliability, their capacity to analyse, evaluate and synthesise. Further, at the

Literature Use for this Practitioner (prepared draft for thesis, 2004, Dianne Allen)

p.2

point of deciding to take the results on trust, I will have exercised my evaluative criteria (whatever they may be) on what I have read, and how I have understood it. Another technique relevant to building knowledge is to look at material which identifies disconfirmatory results, to see what can be learned from the process of the contestation of the concept. The efficacy of this technique can be thwarted by the phenomenon that when a concept is new, fresh, experientially relatable, and capable of being embraced by many as a sort of homecoming, it is often difficult to present, and have accepted for publication, the contrary view, unless the author with the contrary view is already renown. If the author with the contrary view is already renown, then their contribution can also be interpreted as the old school, conservatism challenge; and their challenge may be from an inappropriate methodological and/or epistemological and/or ontological frame. Schon notes some of this in one his final published articles (Schon, 1995) when in his concluding remarks he says " new forms of scholarship call for a new institutional epistemology. If the scholarship of synthesis, application, or teaching requires that the scholar contribute to knowledge according to norms shared and developed within a community of inquiry, then the new scholarship cannot achieve legitimacy within an institution exclusively dedicated to technical rationality - the epistemology around which the modern research university was originally established and which still underlies its key institutions." A third approach relies on the assumption that material generated most recently is likely to have taken into account some of the earlier material. In this instance the practical approach is to look at the literature from a reverse chronological frame using the most recent and going backwards through it. However, this latter approach courts the risk of conventionality. It tends to privilege the prior material as the correct way of viewing the problem. Any sense of a need to be creative, to challenge the basic assumptions of prior material, is considered unnecessary. At this point another approach with some practical dimensions can commend itself: that of spending more time, what time is available, with the original proponents, to deepen my own understanding of what they are saying and exploring that in the light of my own experience, to test whether it lends itself to being useful and usable knowledge for me. Mezirows work on meaning schemes, and the ideas of constructivism would seem to indicate that such work will be productive and useful (Mezirow, 1991). It may be misconceived, but it will yield some fruitfulness. In-practice there are many roads to Rome. If I ground that understanding in my experience, past and ongoing, and continue to honour my own experience with the validity it deserves, and if I can be engaged with other practitioners engaged in the same enterprise, allowing the testing of my thinking to be subject to enunciation and negotiation, then the understanding that develops for me will be my working hypothesis. In time it might ripen to something worth publishing, for others to use to test their thinking and to relate to their experience as a grounding for validating. My personal approach is one with a greater practice orientation. My use of the literature includes the following objectives: 6. To know the field well enough to frame my question and know where it fits in the field 7. To have evaluated the literature at a sufficient level to know what it is likely to yield - there is a limit to comprehensiveness, the practical consideration of the law of diminishing returns operates here 8. To take into account the work of others so that I am not duplicating effort - a practical criterion of efficiency

Literature Use for this Practitioner (prepared draft for thesis, 2004, Dianne Allen)

p.3

9. To work with the findings of others to engage in the process of learning to change for myself, by building on, or revising, my current conceptual framework 10. To use the findings in the literature to garner ideas for improvement of practice ideas for different action options 11. To use the findings in the literature to question and challenge my current thinking-action complex 12. And by steps 9, 10, and 11 to use the findings in the literature as a springboard for creative designing In the draft thesis tendered to supervisors, parts of Chapter 2 and 3 represent a first round of such a study, using techniques 1-3 for recent journal publications. My second round of study which was directed to refining my understanding of learning to change and facilitating learning to change was more in the nature of techniques 6-12 than 1-5. Here I have chosen to work in some depth with the material of Chris Argyris (and Donald Schon), Jack Mezirow, Gregory Bateson, Donald Schon and John Heron. My choice of these authors is on the basis that I have found their work to be based on a significant period of persistent and systematic practice; dealing with a similar context to the one I wish to deal with ie demonstrating an ecological match demonstrating change and development of fundamental ideas in response to peer interactions about findings and processes; relatable; challenging; and capable of stimulating ideas for action for/in me. By comparison, my refining of my understanding of the inquiry needed to engage in learning to change and facilitating engagement in that kind of inquiry shows more signs of items 1-5 than 612. At this stage I attribute this to being more conscious of becoming an aware practitioner of inquiry, and that I am in the beginning stages of such conscious awareness. Further, as far as evaluation is concerned, I barely know what it is that I am seeking to become more aware about here. The discussion of the literature of evaluation, as it applies in the context of my particular study, as it develops and unfolds, is therefore limited. The text I presented was then the construction of my current conceptual framework of learning to change, as informed by these scholars work and mobilisable by me in a way that informs my thinking-action complex. My stance, in my ongoing inquiry approach, is one of seeking to improve my practice, and by doing reflective work on that practice, and, in particular, focusing on my thinking-action complex that is in-forming that practice. To do that involves enunciating the thinking component - the conceptual framework. When that thinking component is enunciated it is available and open to review, its quality can be tested. In some measure it is one of the ways in which I can have a dialectic discussion with peers. In the current world of academia, with increased fragmentation of studies, this may be one of the more significant opportunities for a peer dialectic. Dianne Allen More details available at

Literature Use for this Practitioner (prepared draft for thesis, 2004, Dianne Allen)

p.4

http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/288/ Bibliography
Abraham, S. (1994). Exploratory Action Research. Brisbane: Aebis. Candy, P. (1991). Self-Direction for Lifelong Learning: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schon, D. A. (1995). The new scholarship requires a new epistemology. Change, 27(6), 26-29.