RATIONALE FOR STUDY TWO

Most o f the problem situations with which educational psychologists work are complex enough to allow support for a wide variety of possible analyses (Arkes, 1981). As a result, there are theoretical and practical questions, which arise about the quality o f an educational psychologist's analysis o f a client's problem, and about the interview strategies, which are related to gaining such an understanding. Study two investigates theoretical predictions regarding how people go about formulating high quality understandings o f complex and ill-defined problems, and how interviewer skills develop over time following a period of training.

For the purposes of this thesis, a "high quality" understanding was defined using Robinson's (1987) definition as, an analysis which was: 1. Accurate to the facts o f the case; 2. Complete, in that all major aspects of the client's problem, and their inter­ relationships, were identified; 3. Consistent with contemporary psychological theory and practice; and 4. In agreement with "expert" analysis. The results of this study should also help to inform the content and approach taken when teaching initial interviewing and problem-reasoning skills in training programmes for educational psychologists (and other related practitioners, such as clinical psychologists, social workers and counsellors) where the purpose of such interviews is reaching an accurate and high quality understanding o f a client's problem.

Chapter two highlighted a body of literature which has attempted to identify interviewer behaviours involved when practitioners make judgements about a client's presenting problems. This is often called the diagnosis phase within the medical and clinical literature. Surprisingly, there has been little published research, which has directly investigated the relative quality of such understandings. Much o f the research

has instead focused upon the construction and validation o f a wide range o f process models concerning the mechanisms underlying the way in which doctors (Elstein et al, 1990), counsellors (Egan, 1994; Lichtenberg, 1997; Tomm, 1985), and educational psychologists (Cameron & Stratford, 1987; Gutkin & Curtis, 1982; Miller et al, 1992) select, organise and integrate information from their patients or clients in order to derive an analysis o f their problem. It is assumed that, if a practitioner follows a set o f logical or theoretically derived stages, and uses particular types of questions, they will obtain an adequate picture o f the client’s problem. There have been few attempts to study systematically the development over time of those interviewer behaviours which are related to higher quality judgements (or the opposite, poor quality analyses), in either the medical or social science arenas (Robinson & Halliday, 1988).

In the following study, the educational psychologist who is engaging in an initial teacher interview is seen very much within Deweyian terms. The interviewer is actively involved in a joint inquiry with the teacher; in generating hypotheses, testing such hypotheses against teacher information and their own knowledge and experiences, critiquing and agreeing propositions, with the aim of achieving an accurate understanding of the problem situation. This view is derived from research and models on problem reasoning (Argyris, 1982, 1993; Argyris & Schon, 1974, 1996; Elstein et al, 1990; Eysenck & Keane, 1995; Popper, 1989; Robinson, 1987; 1993; Robinson & Halliday, 1988; Schon, 1983), and related research from the fields of information processing and cognitive psychology (Arkes, 1981; Eysenck & Keane, 1995; Glaser, 1984; Nagy, 1994; Ericsson & Chamess, 1994; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996; Dawson, 1998; Wiley, 1998).

Such research indicates that, due to human information processing limitations, especially working memory constraints, a search to find out everything about a case would lead to cognitive overload on the part of the educational psychologist, and increased difficulty in observing and sorting patterns and relationships with the information provided by the teacher (Kail & Pellegrino, 1985). It is therefore proposed that, during initial interviews, the way that teacher information is sampled and processed is o f crucial importance to the development of a quality understanding of the problem by the interviewer.

from research which has looked at how people reason and problem solve within complex knowledge domains, such as medicine (Elstein et al, 1990). Expert problem-solvers are distinguished from novices by their use of theory and principle to guide and integrate what initially seem to be unrelated aspects o f the problem, the generation o f additional information from the detail given by clients, and the making o f predictions (Chi et al, 1981; Glaser, 1984; Lichtenberg, 1997). Expert problem solvers appear to reason with the facts of the case, and make interpretations and predictions based upon these facts. On the other hand novices appear to remain focused upon the surface features o f the case, spending considerable amounts of time collecting as much data as possible from clients, usually on arbitrary aspects of the problem (Claibom, 1982).

4.1.1. Psychological interviewing

Many models o f psychological interviewing have been influenced by the counselling literature (Edenborough, 1996; Woolfe & Dryden, 1996). Often these models are based upon philosophical, rather than empirical claims, about how people reason about and understand a client's problem, if, in fact, that is what they see a counsellor's role as being (Dryden, 1996; Woolfe & Dryden, 1996). In general, those models which stress some notion o f understanding of a client's problem, emphasise that what is important during the interview is for the interviewer to empathise (positive regard, acceptance, warmth, adopting a non-judgemental stance), and to ask many enquiry (open and closed) questions in order to obtain as much information about the client's problem as possible (Tomm, 1985; Woolfe & Dryden, 1996).

At a common sense level this model suggests that, to understand a client's problem, counsellors must find out all they can. The information obtained is then processed, within particular theoretical frameworks, with the client in most cases being excluded from the counsellor’s reasoning process (e.g., variants of behavioural, cognitive- behavioural, systemic, psychodynamic approaches, and what some writers refer to as eclectic models, or in Greeno's terms, behaviourist, cognitive and situative perspectives, Greeno et al, 1996). In fact, some models of counselling tell counsellors not to share their views with clients, as this could interfere with the therapeutic process (i.e. in frameworks which use, for example the techniques of paradox and metaphor) (Woolfe

& Dryden, 1996).

Lee, Uhlemann and Haase (1985) found in a study of beginning counsellors that 86% o f the trainee counsellors' behaviour was comprised o f reflection, information gathering and giving advice. Less than 1.2% was comprised o f interpretation and confrontation. The rationale for asking enquiry questions (open and closed) is that they provide the only means for the interviewer to access information from the client about their problem. The information obtained is sorted and reasoned with covertly by the interviewer. The counsellor does not need to share their thinking with the client, because they are the "expert" who needs to understand the problem so that an intervention can be designed for the client. However, a reliance upon enquiry questions does nothing to assist the problems imposed by the limits of human information processing. In addition, such an approach does not allow opportunities for the client to critique or challenge the counsellor's view (hypotheses) about their problem situation. This last proposition assumes that both the counsellor and the client have the skills to do this, and also implies relatively assertive and sophisticated clients.

4.1.2. Accessible reasoning - a part replication and extension of Robinson and Halliday's findings

Educational psychologists usually attempt to reach an understanding o f a teacher's problem situation by interviewing them. This highlights the question of what behaviours assist the interviewer in overcoming the cognitive difficulties associated with ill- structured problems, so that a high quality understanding of the problem can be reached. Robinson and Halliday's (1988) research identified that interviewers' use o f "accessible reasoning" appeared to be an important strategy related to gaining such an understanding. Interviewer overt reasoning was termed "accessible" because it provided the client with access to the thinking, which lay behind the interviewer's developing model o f their problem. For the purposes of this thesis, accessible reasoning was defined, as, any interviewer utterance, which expressed an understanding or interpretation o f some aspect o f the client's data, supported by relevant evidence or argument.

As described in chapter two, Robinson and Halliday (1988) found that the amount o f information collected during an initial interview with a client did not predict the

quality o f counsellors' analysis of the problem. This finding is consistent with other research, which has shown that expert problem-solvers, in comparison with novices, did not collect as much information from their clients in formulating hypotheses or in reaching their analyses (Lichtenberg, 1997; Locke & Covell, 1997; Rosenberg, 1997). It is acknowledged that much of the interviewer's reasoning during the interview is covert rather than overt. On theoretical grounds, it was assumed that overt and covert reasoning would be highly related. The variable use o f accessible reasoning may make a difference because it minors the extent to which the interviewer is reasoning covertly (Halliday, 1985). In study two it was hypothesised that accessible reasoning makes additional contributions to problem understanding because it is accessible, and therefore open to external critique by the teacher (Argyris, 1982, 1993).

Interviewers who test their hypotheses covertly could miss valuable opportunities of having the teacher validate or challenge their understandings. The teacher may withhold relevant information and not share their perceptions o f the problem with the interviewer. It is likely, that when interviewer reasoning is made accessible, the teacher is provided with opportunities to assist the interviewers in developing their understanding. As a result it is likely to be more accurate and more complete (Glaser,

1984; Lichtenberg, 1997; Locke & Covell, 1997).

In the following study, it was hypothesised that by the end o f the training year EPIT's would be sharing more of their reasoning out loud with the teacher (because, they had been systematically taught to do so), and that their subsequent problem analyses would be o f a higher quality than at the start of training. This process is obviously dependent upon the interviewers having sufficient content-guides (schemata). This would include EPITs' experiences, knowledge o f psychological theory and research which were relevant to the range of problems that they were presented with during training (Goodyear, 1997). As part of their training EPITs were indeed presented with a range o f content and experience on the kinds o f problems educational psychologists typically work with. The simulation task embodied some of these features into a "typical case".

The use o f accessible reasoning may also result in the teacher positively reframing his or her problem. Ravenette's (1997) work, within personal construct

psychology, would predict that a client's presenting problem is in part a function of the way they have constructed and reasoned about their life events. If interviewers disclose their own understanding (interpretations and predictions) o f the problem, clients are provided with an opportunity to compare and contrast it with their own thinking, and have an opportunity to revise their own beliefs. This does of course assume a degree o f rationality on the part of both the client and interviewer (Argyris, 1982).

In the types of problems presented to educational psychologists, a high quality understanding is not the same as a correct diagnosis as in the medical arena. In information-processing terms, reaching an understanding of a teacher's ill-structured problem means changing it into a series of more clearly structured subproblems. In the following study the quality of an EPIT's problem understanding, including its accuracy, completeness, and the coherence of its argument, were the major outcome measures used.

The present study represents a part replication and extension of Robinson and Halhday's (1988) correlational study. Study two investigates their finding on accessible reasoning within a longitudinal experimental study. The study was interested in the extent to which EPITs, in trying to understand a teacher's problem, use accessible reasoning (and other strategies) during initial interviews, and whether so doing is related to a higher quality understanding. This proposition was tested prior to training (time 1), and near the completion o f training (time 2). The EPITs studied were taught an hypothesis-testing problem-solving framework and other related skills (problem-analysis, Monsen et al, 1998). As a consequence this study will also provide an evaluation of the effectiveness o f the course in teaching these skills.