On the epistemological presuppositions of reflective activities

Educational Theory

Volumn 61, Issue 6, 2011, Pages 671-708

  Dohn, Nina Bonderup ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN DENMARK   (Denmark)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 83655211407     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2011.00428.x     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Reflection has been a focus area within organizational learning ever since the field was established because of the significance accorded to it in Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1978). Recent examples of literature focusing on the importance of reflection in organizational and workplace learning include Anne Brockbank, Ian McGill, and Nic Beech, eds., Reflective Learning in Practice (Aldershot, UK: Gower, 2002)
2. David Boud, Peter Cressey, and Peter Docherty, eds., Productive Reflection at Work (New York: Routledge, 2006)
3. Bente Elkjær, Når læring går påarbejde [When learning goes to work] (Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur, 2005).
4. Henk Procee, "Reflection in Education: A Kantian Epistemology,"Educational Theory 56, 3 (2006): 237-253
5. Jan Bengtsson, "What Is Reflection? On Reflection in the Teaching Profession and Teacher Education,"Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 1, 1 (1995): 23-32
6. Peter Jarvis, Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Human Learning (London: Routledge, 2006)
7. David Boud and David Walker, "Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: The Challenge of Context,"Studies in Higher Education 23, 2 (1998): 191-206
8. Ilan Gur-Ze'ev, Jan Masschelein, and Nigel Blake, "Reflectivity, Reflection, and Counter-Education,"Studies in Philosophy and Education 20, 2 (2001): 93-106.
9. David A. Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984)
10. Jack Mezirow, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991)
11. Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
12. Procee, "Reflection in Education."
13. Gur-Ze'ev, Masschelein, and Blake, "Reflectivity, Reflection, and Counter-Education."
14. Jack Mezirow, "How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning," in Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning, ed. Jack Mezirow and Associates (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 1-20.
15. Bengt Molander, Kunskap i handling [Knowledge in action] (Göteborg, Sweden: Daidalos, 1996)
16. David Beckett, "Critical Judgment and Professional Practice,"Educational Theory 46, 2 (1996): 135-149
17. Michael Eraut, "Schön Shock: A Case for Reframing Reflection-in-Action?"Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 1, 1 (1995): 9-22
18. Bengtsson, "What Is Reflection?" Mezirow makes the same point, but without reference to Schön, in Mezirow, "How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning," 6.
19. Examples of such practices are given in, for example, Val Klenowski, Developing Portfolios for Learning and Assessment: Processes and Principles (London: RoutledgeFalmer, ); Brockbank, McGill, and Beech, Reflective Learning in Practice 2002
20. Stephen Brookfield, "Using Critical Incidents to Explore Learners' Assumptions," in Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood, ed. Mezirow and Associates, 177-193
21. David Walker, "Writing and Reflection," in Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning, ed. David Boud, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker (London: Kogan Page, 1985), 52-68
22. David Boud and Graham Feletti, The Challenge of Problem-Based Learning (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).
23. Boud and Walker, "Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses."
24. The expression is Michael Eraut's; see Eraut, "Schön Shock."
25. Christopher Johns, Being Mindful, Easing Suffering: Reflections on Palliative Care (London: Kingsley Publishers, 2004), 25.
26. Walker, "Writing and Reflection."
27. Gillie Bolton, Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (London: Sage, 2005), 4-5.
28. Johns, Being Mindful, Easing Suffering, 53-58.
29. Brookfield, "Using Critical Incidents to Explore Learners' Assumptions"; Brockbank, McGill, and Beech, Reflective Learning in Practice; Anne Brockbank and Ian McGill, Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education (Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, ), esp. chap. 72007
30. Bolton, Reflective Practice. Bolton stresses that reflective journal writing may be the starting point for reflective dialogue sessions and thus provides an example of a reflective activity combining the two paradigm cases.
31. Brockbank, McGill, and Beech, Reflective Learning in Practice, 21.
32. The reference within this quotation is to David Bohm, On Dialogue, ed. Lee Nichol (London: Routledge, 1996).
33. Self-development is also considered an important goal in itself in these instances. Bolton's examples and Brookfield's case are of this type, as are the consciousness-raising groups, described by Mezirow, that aim at emancipatory transformation of stereotypical understandings of gender. See Mezirow, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, 172. In these cases, reflective dialogue is seen as a vital stimulus for the individual's critical self-awareness.
34. Brockbank, McGill, and Beech, Reflective Learning in Practice, 3.
35. David Beckett and Paul Hager, Life, Work and Learning: Practice in Postmodernity (London: Routledge, ), 95. This work will be cited in the text as LWL for all subsequent references.2002
36. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
37. The interested reader proficient in Scandinavian languages is referred to Nina B. Dohn, Læring i praksis-fremstruktureringen af et handlingsorienteret perspektiv [Learning in practice-the structuring of an action-oriented perspective] (Aalborg, Denmark: Aalborg University, ), for a fuller discussion.2005
38. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, ), 95 This work will be cited in the text as PI for all subsequent references.1958179-180
39. This view is found in, for example, Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein (London: Penguin Books, 1973)
40. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1990)
41. P.F. Strawson, "Critical Notice,"Mind 63, 249 (1954): 70-99
42. A.J. Ayer "Can There Be a Private Language?"Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 28 (1954), 63-76 Supplementary vol (Strawson and Ayer actually disagree with Wittgenstein); and-in a somewhat different way-in Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).
43. This second generation may be represented by, for example, Gordon P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, Scepticism, Rules and Language (London: Blackwell, 1985); and, within educational theory, by Christopher Winch, "Rules, Technique, and Practical Knowledge: A Wittgensteinian Exploration of Vocational Learning,"Educational Theory 56, 4 (2006): 407-421.
44. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, ), This work will be cited in the text as OC for all subsequent references.1969229
45. Baker and Hacker thus argue that Wittgenstein only intended to say that rule-following (and with it language) necessarily has to be shareable, whereas Winch claims that Wittgenstein should be interpreted as asserting the intrinsically social nature of rule-following.
46. Recently, Christopher Winch used this understanding of Wittgenstein to argue that vocational practice does not have to be (and actually is not) rigid and inflexible on account of being rule-following. See Winch, "Rules, Technique, and Practical Knowledge."
47. Tore Nordenstam, "Ett pragmatiskt perspektiv pådatautvecklingen" [A pragmatic perspective on the development of information], in Datautvecklingens filosofi, ed. Bo Göranzon (Stockholm: Carlsson och Jönsson, 1983)
48. Kjell Johannessen, "The Concept of Practice in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy,"Inquiry 31, 3 (1988): 357-369
49. Kjell Johannessen and Bertil Rolf, Om tyst kunskap-tvåartiklar [On tacit knowledge-two articles] (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala Universiteit, 1989)
50. Kjell Johannessen, "Rule-Following, Intransitive Understanding and Tacit Knowledge: An Investigation of the Wittgensteinian Concept of Practice as Regards Tacit Knowing," in Skill and Education: Reflection and Experience, ed. Bo Göranzon and Magnus Florin (London: Springer-Verlag, 1992), 41-61
51. Ingela Josefson, Läkarens yrkeskunnande [The doctor's knowledge in practice] (Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 1998)
52. Bengt Molander, "Tacit Knowledge and Silenced Knowledge: Fundamental Problems and Controversies," in Skill and Education: Reflection and Experience, ed. Göranzon and Florin, ; and Molander, Kunskap i handling.9-31
53. David Carr, "Knowledge in Practice,"American Philosophical Quarterly 18, 1 (1981) 53-61
54. Christopher Winch, "Ryle on Knowing How and the Possibility of Vocational Education,"Journal of Applied Philosophy 26, 1 (2009): 88-101.
55. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1949).
56. Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson, "Knowing How,"Journal of Philosophy 98, 8 (2001): 411. Notice that they convert "knowing how" and "knowing that" into the objectifying nouns "knowledge-how" and "knowledge-that." They do this without comment in the very first lines of the article.
57. Carl Ginet, Knowledge, Perception, and Memory (Boston, Massachusetts: Reidel, 1975).
58. Carr has supplied some further examples in Carr, "Knowledge in Practice."
59. Stanley and Williamson, "Knowing How," 416.
60. Carr makes this point, too. His analysis of what is involved in "knowing how" in the strong sense differs from mine. I shall address this matter further in the next paragraph.
61. Carr, "Knowledge in Practice." "The Logic of Knowing How and Ability,"Mind See also David Carr, 88, 351 (1979): 394-409.
62. Carr, "Knowledge in Practice," 57.
63. Carr means "strong sense" in the same sense that I articulated earlier-that is, the sense in which "knowing how" involves "being able to."
64. Carr, "Knowledge in Practice," 60-61.
65. Beckett, "Critical Judgment and Professional Practice," 148-149.
66. Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus, Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer (New York: Free Press, 1986).
67. Dreyfus and Dreyfus, Mind over Machine, 30. Polanyi called this phenomenon "indwelling." See Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
68. Dreyfus and Dreyfus, Mind over Machine, 35.
69. Hubert Dreyfus, "Phenomenological Description versus Rational Reconstruction,"Revue internationale de philosophie 55, 216 (2001): 182.
70. Edwin Hutchins, "Learning to Navigate," in Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, ed. Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
71. Edwin Hutchins and Tove Klausen, "Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit," in Cognition and Communication at Work, ed. Yrjö Engeström and David Middleton (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
72. Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
73. Olivia de la Rocha, "The Reorganization of Arithmetic Practice in the Kitchen,"Anthropology and Education Quarterly 16, 3 (1985): 193-198.
74. Lave, Cognition in Practice, 107.
75. Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
76. There are numerous examples of works addressing this general issue. In Fra bjælker og spær-til butik og salg [From beams and rafters-to shop and sales] (Aalborg, Denmark: University of Aalborg, ), Rasmus Hansen, Peter Musaeus, and Martin Thomsen Langagergaard present three case studies documenting the problem for vocational learners within retail and carpentry. Jens Wilbrandt, through a series of individual and group interviews, investigates the problem for apprentices within the technical vocations in Vekseluddannelse i håndværksuddannelser [Dual training in vocational education] (Copenhagen: Danish Ministry of Education, 2002). Vibe Aarkrog further documents this issue for retail apprentices in a longitudinal study that comprises observation and multiple interviews: Mellem skole og praktik [Between school and workplace] (Copenhagen: DPUs Forlag, 2003). Klaus Nielsen, Når eleverne selv skal sige det [When the students may say so themselves] (Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus, 2005), reports similar findings based on a questionnaire in which 243 students from a wide range of Danish vocational educations participated. Lene Tanggaard, using observation and interviews, provides further documentation of the problem in her study of learners in electromechanical vocational training: Læring og identitet mellem skole og praktik [Learning and identity between school and workplace training] (PhD diss., University of Aalborg, 2004). In their book Praktikkens læringslandskab [The learning landscape of practice] (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 2003), Klaus Nielsen and Steinar Kvale recount findings from some of the preceding studies in a series of short articles. In addition, Nielsen and Kvale's book includes an article that reports similar findings from a large-scale Norwegian survey of 1,617 apprentices, living in five different cities: Liv Mjelde, "Hvad skal jeg med teori? Det er trykker, jeg skal være" [What do I need theory for? I am to be a printer].2002
77. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner, 42.
78. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 33-34.
79. Martin Packer, "The Problem of Transfer, and the Sociocultural Critique of Schooling,"Journal of the Learning Sciences 10, 4 (2001): 493-514
80. Lave and James G. Greeno, Cognition in Practice, "On Claims that Answer the Wrong Questions,"Educational Researcher 26, 1 (1997): 5-17.
81. Packer, "The Problem of Transfer, and the Sociocultural Critique of Schooling,". Here Packer cites Lave, Cognition in Practice,499-500 123.
82. I would prefer "socially mediated" to "product of a constitutive system of social order."
83. Observers doing empirical classroom research frequently note that they are themselves considered a factor in the situation by the teachers and students. For instance, teachers and students look at the researcher during class discussions as a way of gauging the opinion of "the observer." Sometimes the researcher is even asked for a comment or a contribution to the discussion if he or she is known to be competent within the subject area.
84. Johns himself corroborates this view, noting that his diary entries attained a more discursive character when he began anticipating the publication of some of the stories. Johns, Being Mindful, Easing Suffering, 30-31.
85. These considerations apply to data from such courses, supplied in Bolton, Reflective Practice, for example.
86. Brookfield, "Using Critical Incidents to Explore Learners' Assumptions."
87. Brockbank, McGill, and Beech, Reflective Learning in Practice.
88. Johns, Being Mindful, Easing Suffering, 74ff.
89. Walker, "Writing and Reflection," 58 60.
90. For a period of one and a half years, I was affiliated with this university college as a consultant.
91. Brookfield, "Using Critical Incidents to Explore Learners' Assumptions," 185.
92. Mezirow, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, 172.
93. Liisa Postareff, "How Do Teachers' Self-Reports of Their Teaching Correspond with Their Teaching Practices?" (paper presented at the annual conference of the International Consortium for Educational Development, Barcelona, Spain, June 2010).
94. Arne Vines and Olga Dysthe, "Productive Learning in the Study of Law," in Analysing Networked Learning Practices in Higher Education and Continuing Professional Development, ed. Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Chris Jones, and Berner Lindström (Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2009), 175-200.
95. Nina B. Dohn, "Teaching with Wikis and Blogs: Potentials and Pitfalls,"Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning, ed. Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld et al. (Lancaster, UK: University of Lancaster, 2010), 142-150.
96. Boud, Keogh, and Walker, Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning, 7-8.
97. It is debatable whether the views of Schön and Beckett actually diverge as much as Beckett thinks they do (see Beckett, "Critical Judgment and Professional Practice," 148). On the one hand, one might argue that Schön did not intend his term in the reactive sense in which Beckett takes it. Schön's analysis of the way the architect Wim Quist develops his ideas for a given school building certainly suggests that there are visionary structural aspects to the process (see Schön, The Reflective Practitioner, ). The important point is that the vision develops as part of the conversation with the situation. This point, on the other hand, coincides with Beckett's similar claim that the vision that guides "anticipatory action" may itself develop in the course of the conversation with the situation.93-104
98. Bengtsson, "What Is Reflection,"As is claimed by Bengtsson, for example. 27-28.
99. To the extent that this is so, the claim that reflection necessarily involves distancing oneself from practice (if only momentarily) is in need of independent justification; at the moment this is a myth at best.
100. An empirically documented example is supplied by Carsten Østerlund in his study of the way new sales apprentices perform against the background of their prior occupations. Carsten Østerlund, "Sales Apprentices on the Move: A Multi-Contextual Perspective on Situated Learning,"Journal of Nordic Educational Research 17, 3 (1997): 169-178.
101. Ole Dreier, Psychotherapy in Everyday Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).