Phase 2 Perceptions and
4.13 Reflection and reflexivity
In DBR the researcher is a participant in the study and is required to engage in reflective and reflexive behaviours throughout the process. Reflexivity concerns the need for the researcher to be self-aware, especially because in a study like this, as an educator, I am researching my own students. Bryman (2012) asserts that reflexivity is the effect of engaging in research on the study, as researchers are always affected by the personal problems and trauma experienced by their subjects. The work of Schön (1983) is often cited when describing being reflexive and reflective. Schön describes reflection in action as the process of looking back to better understand what has occurred, and reflection in action is the thinking that is done while working, researching and teaching, described by him as: “thinking on your feet”. There are times when these processes overlap, especially in DBR (Bassot, 2013) when you, as the educator, are also teaching your students to become reflective practitioners and develop skills of reflexivity.
Being reflective requires the researcher to be “self-questioning and self-understanding”
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(Patton, 2002, p.67). Beyond just being reflective I was required to be reflexive and had to look at how my own identity, as a middle-aged, Indian South African female teacher, influences the way I teach, collect some of the data and make sense of the data. I am aware that I am not a neutral observer and am “implicated in the construction of knowledge (Gray, 2009, p. 498). My race, gender and role as an educator play a role in the research process. Reflexivity, unlike reflection, requires “both an ‘other’ and some self-conscious awareness of the process of self- scrutiny” (Chiseri- Strater cited in Pillow, 2010, p. 177). Thus there is a need for me to be aware and conscious through personally accounting for how my self- location, position and interests influence the phases of the research. My being an older, black (of Indian descent) South African woman teacher does influence my position in relation to the students and the participants. Listening and writing with an awareness of positional, textual and ethnographic reflexivity helped me to develop an awareness of how my own assumptions and position might be brought to bear on the research process (Macbeth, 2001; Pillow, 2010).There are two types of reflexivity, based on the researcher’s assumptions about the world and the nature of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge based on the paradigms they use to see the research problems. The other type of reflexivity is about personal values, attitudes beliefs and aims. I have included in appendix 1 some of my personal reflections of being an educator.
Educators researching their own students demand a greater degree of reflexivity, because they become involved in the lives of their students and are, on occasion, moved by their personal struggles and crises. There was a need for me to think about these factors and be aware of the power dynamics. I am central to the process of course design and transformation, based on my sphere of influence. However, at another level, I am but one educator within a complex HE system and I am aware that some aspects are beyond my control. Factors within my locus of control are my own information, knowledge, power and skills. In addition, I am part of a social work department and a member of the team of educators who teach second-year students, so my role on this team also shapes my own identity. I was required to consider my own role and performance as an educator, social work professional and learner. Sometimes these roles clash, and are both personal and related to self-development (McKenney & Reeves, 2012)
I was involved with the research over a sustained period of time from 2013 to 2016, and developed an intensive experience with the participants. My engagement over the period does
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raise a range of strategic, ethical and personal issues about the qualitative process, and I needed to consider factors such as biases, values, and personal background, as well as gender, history, culture and socio-economic status that might shape the interpretations formed during the study. Methods used to enhance reflexivity were to keep a journal and encourage the participants to reflect throughout the data-gathering stages of the project. In the results chapter I have attempted to include statements about experiences that provide background data through which the audience can better understand the study.
4.13.1 Structured reflection
In educational design research
… reflection is active and thoughtful consideration of what has come together in both research and development (including theoretical inputs, empirical findings and subjective reactions) with the aim of producing new (theoretical) understandings (McKenney & Reeves, 2012, p. 151).
Course design reflection focuses on two aspects: design challenge, which is the difference between the existing and the desired situation and context and, secondly, aspects of the integrated research and development process (McKenney & Reeves, 2012). There were two distinct reflection periods to this study. The first was a reflection on how other educators teach meso practice, and the second was at the end of the implementation of the course and after the data had been analysed, where there were further reflections to develop a set of guidelines. In the reflection phase of the project the main question answered was the degree to which meaning was obtained from the data, and the lessons learned. Triangulation was used in this phase. These lessons included my personal interpretation, couched in the understanding the inquiry brought from my own culture, history and experience. Consideration was given to a comparison of the findings which the information gleaned from the literature or theories (i.e. how it relates to authentic learning). The development of course guidelines was an important outcome of the study. Finally, the project offers areas for further research, based on the questions still left unanswered.
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I bring an emic perspective in my role as teacher of social work and as an employee at a HEI, so that procedural and practice ethics were upheld. The limitation of informed consent in modified DBR is that all the possible outcomes cannot be predicted as the processes evolve, though the necessary ethical conditions were applied. During all stages of the research, ethical guidelines were followed: from the design of the study; the development of the data collection instruments, especially when collecting data, during transcription and analysis, and finally, when reporting and publishing the findings so that confidentiality was upheld. Thus any identifying information was reported and any publications that emanated from the study would not be identifiable.
Limitations of this study were that the results were specific to these undergraduate social work students and the meso practice course curriculum of this particular department, and it might be difficult to generalise about the applicability of this approach. However, this study has highlighted guidelines that could be used in other courses and disciplines using group work. The limitations of using modified DBR were that it is time-consuming and complex, with multiple dependent variables, including climate, outcome and system variables, creating a rich but at times confusing environment (Barab & Squire, 2004; Johnson et al.,2007). The copious amount of data generated from the study required triangulation, prolonged engagement with continued refinement, reflexive journaling, thick descriptions and purposive sampling to add to the trustworthiness of the study.
4.15 Conclusion
In Chapter Four, consideration has been given to how mixed methods research was used in the modified design-research study. I have shown how a phased mixed methods design was used, starting with a literature review into meso practice education and authentic learning, followed by an understanding of the context by interviewing practitioners in the field. The meso practice course was designed and implemented in 2015, and various types of data was collected, from the students and from the external off-site field instruction supervisors. The data was mainly qualitative in nature and were analysed using content analysis. A limited
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amount of quantitative data from the survey and descriptive statistics were used for analysis. The final phase of the study was the development of guidelines to support the teaching and course design for meso practice education. In this chapter some of the ethics that were important to this study were described, after which there was a description of how aspects of trustworthiness were ensured.
In Chapter Five there is an exploration of what practitioners see as important for the teaching and supervision of students in meso practice. The practitioners interviewed were five educators based at various South African HEIs and four field instruction supervisors. These interviews were insightful and offered a glimpse of how some practitioners work to develop students to become skilled in meso practice education.
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