Collaborative learning

Although the principles of action research have been extrapolated to improvement of individual practice (Whitehead 1991), action research originally gained popularity, particularly through Lewin’s (1946:34) work, as a tool to assist intergroup relations. Retaining this group focus, many advocates argue that action research is only constituted through collective and collaborative inquiry (Zuber-Skerritt 1992). Within this conception, action research requires an emphasis on forming shared

discourses and agreed practices, (self-)critical analysis of group relationships, and group learning (Kemmis and McTaggart 1988).

Kemmis and McTaggart (1988:31-43) invoke theories of contestation and

institutionalisation to describe the dynamic of group learning. Contestation theory refers to the political processes of negotiation and renegotiation that effect change in a group’s continual reconstruction of its social reality, and its relationship to broader society (p. 31). Thus, as DSS developers reflect on potential individual and shared biases, conflict may emerge, for example, as to the validity or likelihood of biases, or the practicality, necessity or means of managing biases. As contests between

members of a group are resolved, certain discourses, practices and organisations become accepted, shared and institutionalised (p. 41). Kemmis and McTaggart argue that revelation of the critical history of contests, changes and institutionalisation is a key dimension of constructive group improvement, as the critical history may shape “categories of individual and cultural action to define themes, issues and strategies which could form the basis of a plan for a program of reform” (p 43). Learning is thus represented as directed improvement through individuals becoming more conscious and critical of the coherency and consistency of individual and shared discourses, practices and forms of organisation (p.44). As individuals reflect in concert, group learning may emerge. As Heclo (1974:306) argues, “Social learning is created only by individuals, but alone and in interactions these individuals acquire and produce changed patterns of collective action”. Thus, the identities of DSS developers, and their constructions of bias, development practice, the DSS and the decision-making environment, are continually contested, reproduced and

institutionalised. Reflection on the critical history of DSS development may catalyse individual learning, and may shape collective action, therein reinforcing collaborative learning.

Collaborative social learning also features in organisational change, policy learning and environmental negotiation literatures. From the organisational learning domain, Haas (1990) describes learning as “the establishment of shared meanings among parties that may be active antagonists but that find themselves condemned by their interdependence to negotiate better solutions than they had created in earlier attempts”. In construction of knowledge terms, the establishment of shared meanings implies the sharing of different constructed realities. As Erlanson et al. (1993:24) note, “This sharing is never a straight-forward, clear communication of the original constructions; it is shaped by the host of realities already constructed by each group, based on their collective experiences as well as the relationships between the groups”. The demand for procedures to negotiate a path through conflict for mutual social learning translates into a requirement for processes that interrogate and adjudicate the different construals of reality (Bruner 1990:95). As Long (1992:27) warns, such processes do not escape conflict, but instead are inherently political: “Knowledge encounters involve the struggle between actors who aim to enrol others in their ‘projects’, getting them to accept particular frames of meaning, winning them over to their point of view”. Consequently, apparent convergence of constructions may reflect one person’s successful impairment, perhaps via suppression,

intimidation, distortion or obfuscation, of communication and other social

interchanges intended to guide the negotiation of shared constructions (Lindblom 1990:80, Habermas 1984). From this perspective, non-collaborative learning may be

promoted as individuals or stakeholder groups engage in single-loop learning about how they may better achieve the ends defined by their core ontological and

normative beliefs (Sabatier 1988, Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier 1994).

Lee (1993) draws on Haas (1990) and Argyris and Schon (1978), among others, in his model of social learning, based on adaptive management and bounded conflict, to achieve sustainable ecosystem management. Within Lee’s conception, adaptive management involves the use of policy experimentation to discipline learning from experience (p. 114). Bounded conflict is represented as “a combination of politics, negotiation, and other means of promoting uncomfortable change, which provides tools for establishing shared goals and probing the bounds of cooperative effort” (p.

16). Lee argues that while social learning may emerge through conflict, severe conflict may prevent or undermine experiential learning, or lead to only sporadic learning (p. 101,114). To foster learning, Lee suggests restructuring conflict through negotiation processes which recognise different visions of conflict, and thus of learning directions, which build consensus on agreed goals, and which oversee incremental settlement of conflict (p. 105,108). Echoing Lee’s approach, McLain and Lee (1996:439) propose that “In situations where a multiplicity of stakeholders are present, the key is not to try to reach consensus on all values and meanings but to create some common values and shared meanings through processes that promote the development of mutual recognition of the legitimacy of the interests of others”. Focussing on individuals within communities of practice, O’Neill (1998:16) argues that differing understandings “only need to be addressed and resolved when they directly interfere with mutual engagement and achievement of the joint enterprise”. To negotiate a convergent vision from divergent positions, Lindblom (1990) advocates social inquiry or ‘probing’ of the differing positions. These theoretical perspectives suggest that to promote collaborative learning, divergent framings of decision support should be highlighted, probed and debated when they manifest as competing claims for commitments in constructing the DSS developers’ joint enterprise; the DSS.

Departing from conflict-oriented models, an alternative perspective on decision­ making and group learning argues that learning not only flows from political contests, but also from “collective puzzlement” (Heclo 1974:305). Following this line, Revans (1991:5) suggests that collective learning flows from the recognition of common ignorance, as participants discover that no one participant can tell the others the answer, but instead “all are obliged to find it”. Within this conception, learning entails taking steps to overcome ignorance, rather than merely trading knowledge between participants. This suggests that a condition for effective collective learning may be a willingness to acknowledge the limits of group knowledge and the

existence of ignorance.

One challenge in collaborative learning is the potential for disjunctures when a newcomer joins the DSS development process. Situated learning theory offers insights into how new participants in the DSS development community may integrate with a culture of reflexive, precautionary practice. Following Lave and Wenger’s (1991) conception, ‘situated learning’ implies more than classical experiential models of ‘learning by doing’. Learning is framed as a process of becoming a full participant in a particular community of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991:52).

becomes absorbed into the culture of practice - the norms and practices of the community (p. 95). The newcomer also introduces their personal culture of practice to the community of practice, therein reconstituting and transforming the community. Based on a conceptual understanding of agent, activity and social world as mutually constitutive, learning thus involves the (re)production, transformation and change of the identities of practitioners, skills of practice, and communities of practice through social activity (p. 49, 51). Differences in power between the established community members and the newcomer mediate the extent to which a newcomer reluctant to engage in reflexive, precautionary practice will transform or be transformed by the culture of practice (p. 116). It should be noted that, by locating learning as social co­ participation, Lave and Wenger (1991) offer a contrasting viewpoint to Kemmis and McTaggart’s (1988) and Heclo’s (1974) analytical focus on the individual-as-leamer.