Professional Learning in Higher Education and Communities

This page intentionally left blank

Professional Learning in Higher Education and Communities Towards a New Vision for Action Research

Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt , Margaret Fletcher and Judith Kearney North West University, South Africa, and Griffith University, Australia

© Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, Margaret Fletcher and Judith Kearney 2015 Foreword © Jonathan D. Jansen 2015

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2015 by PALGRAVE

Palgrave in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW

Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave is the global imprint of the above companies and is represented throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-349-49809-3 ISBN 978-1-137-45518-5 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/9781137455185

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-45517-8

Front Cover

The photograph on the front cover reminds us of Reg Revans, the ‘Father of Action Learning’, and his metaphor illustrating the limitations of human knowledge and understanding in the face of the ‘wide ocean of our ignorance’. 1

1 Revans, R. (1991). Reg Revans speaks about action learning. Video program produced by Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt. University of Queensland, Brisbane: Video Vision, ITS (published on DVD in 2006 by Acaciacom, Brisbane).

Dedication

We dedicate this book to Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), freedom fighter, statesman and first democratically elected President of South Africa (1994–1999). He was sentenced to life in prison in 1964 as an activist for the African National Congress (ANC). On his release in 1990 he became the leader of the ANC and engaged in talks on the introduction of majority rule with President Frederik Willem de Klerk, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize in 1993.

Nelson Mandela is a global hero and champion. He lived the values we hold deeply for our vision of action research, including freedom of speech, equality and equity of all humankind: commitment to peaceful negotiations; civil rights and social justice; community engagement; poverty reduction through employment; and education and higher education opportunities for all. The quotations at the beginning of each chapter are selected from Hatang, S., and Sahm, V. (Eds) (2011). Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations . Johannesburg: Pan Macmillan. We thank the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the publishers for their permission to use these quotations.

vii

Contents

Foreword Jonathan D. Jansen ix

Acknowledgements xiii

About the Authors xiv

Reviewers’ Comments xvi

List of Tables xx

List of Figures xxi

List of Acronyms xxiii

1 Conceptual Framework 1 Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt

Part I Professional Learning through Critical Reflection 39

2 Professional Learning 41 Margaret Fletcher

3 Critical Reflection 76 Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt

4 Action Research 102 Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt

Part II Case Studies in Higher Education and Communities 135

5 Professional Learning with Academics: Case Studies from South Africa 137

Margaret Fletcher and Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt

6 Professional Learning with Community Leaders: Case Studies from Six African Countries 170

Margaret Fletcher, Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt and Judith Kearney

7 Professional Learning through University–Community Partnerships in Australia 198

Judith Kearney and Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt

viii Contents

Part III Implications and Conclusions 221

8 Professional Learning through an Action Research Thesis 223 Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt and Margaret Fletcher

9 Conclusions and Critical Reflections 255 Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, Margaret Fletcher and Judith Kearney

Appendices 271

Author Index 279

Subject Index 284

ix

Foreword

Every now and again a book of educational scholarship emerges that reminds us of our most cherished ideals as progressive educators and researchers. Those ideals include deep learning, democratic commit-ment, critical reflection, collaborative education and acting on the world around us through new knowledge acquired. It is rare, however, to find such an exceptional contribution to knowledge and change as this new book by leading world scholars on action research and profes-sional learning.

In an age of performance-driven education cultures where testing has become ubiquitous and the measurement of human endeavours reduced to ‘indicators’ and ‘outputs’, it is so important to see more published work that flies in the face of reductionism of this kind. Make no mistake, the so-called production function model of economics still enjoys much purchase in education policy and planning, and constitutes the basis for educational investments amongst the large agencies. But it cannot be the only model, and it must be challenged by scholarship that places human agency and democratic values at the centre of the problem of change.

Subtly, the book also challenges another rising fad within education, and that is the evidence-based movement, an ideological cousin of perform-ance-based pedagogies. With its origins in medicine, the notion that you can reduce the complexities of educational processes to randomised control trials is not without an audience even within the social sciences and education. Much as I appreciate the finesse and parsimony of statis-tical measures of things, I simply cannot transfer methods for a study of the efficacy of drug X on ailment Y with tracing the effects of a curriculum intervention on the political, cultural, social and interpersonal dynamics of schools as organisations. Action research and collaborative learning represent not simply new ‘methods’ but a different epistemological and political starting point for thinking about research, action and learning. So what does such a meaningful scholarship entail?

Maybe it’s a function of ageing but I have become more and more uncomfortable with education scholarship that remains disconnected from the lives of real people. Do not misunderstand me; I am a traditional academic with an unremitting love for theoretical work and so-called ‘blue sky research’. But I am talking about something else. Perhaps it should be labelled ‘pretentious research’ in which the scholar seems so

x Foreword

determined to use the abstraction of language to convey a sense of intel-ligence or remoteness that the work has little to say about the labour of teaching or learning or thinking itself. Sometimes people forget that the purpose of any research is to communicate, to make sense to someone even if only your peers, and of course to advance knowledge, if not improve the world around us.

Before and since the post-modernist era of research in the humani-ties, which quickly found its way from literature into education and the social sciences, such playing with words simply did not impress me. There are of course familiar tales of people who deliberately published abstract nonsense from this tradition in high-flying journals and got away with it, only to poke fun at the pretence of the targeted journal and its editors. What the work of Zuber-Skerritt and her colleagues does is to ground research in some of the most desperate challenges facing us today, from poverty and inequality to undemocratic regimes and their school systems. Participatory Action Learning and Action Research (PALAR) captures the range and conveys the dynamism of this research, which stands in stark contrast to the anaemic tradition of distant scholarship removed from the lives of actors in the drama of life.

Again, theoretical and conceptual labour has its place in the world of scholarship. Grappling with difficult concepts is an enjoyment in itself but especially when it allows us to ‘see’ complexity around us in terms that are accessible. Collaborative learning, for example, contains such a range of meanings with powerful applications that the term itself requires conceptual analysis and engagement as a distinct activity of scholarship.

There is another shift in this work on action research and collabo-rative learning that is new and refreshing, and it has to do with the recognition of emotions in educational work. For too long emotions have been regarded as something negative, as in the instruction ‘don’t be so emotional’. We now know from works such as Paul Thagard’s Hot Thoughts: Mechanisms and Applications of Emotional Cognition and the research of Andy Hargreaves and his students on the emotions of teaching that even cold-hearted, clinical decisions are in fact powered by emotions rather than by cognition alone. This is important because it not only affirms our humanity at the heart of decision-making, but also opens up the work of education to a very different kind of leader-ship that honours the emotions of learning and living and labouring together in school and community. What needs to happen next is for emotions to meet critical theory, as this book does.

Foreword xi

In fact central to the approach of the book is critical theory in its finest, Frankfurt School tradition. However, a word of distinction, if not caution, would not be out of place here. There is one notion of critical theory as referring to anything critical, such as critical thinking in its liberal meaning. I have no difficulty with this latter tradition for there is something to be challenged, at an elemental level, in the domi-nant mode of educational practice, which is still so much focused on delivery of content as opposed to engagement with ideas. At schools and universities, in wealthy nations and especially in poorer ones, there is an educational settlement (and I use the metaphor deliberately) in which teachers show up as all-wise experts who then drum information into the heads of learners for simple recall purposes in endless cycles of tests and examinations.

This basic grammar of schooling, as David Tyack once called it, has not shifted in most places and I cannot think of a more appropriate response than a critical thinking that starts with the notion of knowl-edge as tentative and uncertain, of curriculum as negotiable, of peda-gogy as exchange, and of learners as active in the process of making meaning in the classroom.

But critical theory has another set of roots, broadly associated with the Frankfurt tradition and explicated most eloquently by scholars like Henry Giroux, Michael Apple, Jean Anyon, Cameron McCarthy and many others. Here critical theory is not simply the exercise of the mental faculties in openly democratic classrooms; it is that and more. In this context critical theory links education to society and, in particular, to the politics and economics of what happens outside the classroom. Students link curriculum knowledge to inequalities in society so that, for example, mathematical problems are posed in terms of differential wages between factory workers and their bosses, and biological problems link analyses of germ load in the local river to the dumping of chemicals into that water from a local manufacturing plant. Here knowledge is not neutral but in fact a product of capitalist society or patriarchal family relations or racism in the broader society.

It seems to me that while recognising the value of both approaches, and their interrelatedness, a more explicit distinction should perhaps be made in the new advances to action learning and collaborative educa-tion as expounded in this ground-breaking book.

In conclusion, the sheer range of concepts and methods, and the criti-cality underpinning the underlying philosophy and politics of education in this new book, promise to renew theory and practice in education across many contexts. The case studies from diverse social and cultural

xii Foreword

contexts certainly make the general arguments come alive in the imagi-nation for university academics, school teachers and community activ-ists wanting much more from education than what is on offer in the dominant mode of schooling.

JONATHAN D. JANSEN, VICE CHANCELLOR,

UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE, SOUTH AFRICA

xiii

Acknowledgements

We thank our friends who provided us with constructive critique, comments and suggestions for improvement: Lesley Wood (South Africa), Richard Teare (USA/UK), Ron Passfield (Australia), Stephan Laske (Austria), Wendy Rowe (Canada), Mary Brydon-Miller (USA), Pip Bruce-Ferguson (New Zealand), David Coghlan (Ireland) and our ALARA friends in Brisbane, in particular Bob Dick.

We also acknowledge the helpful comments from Maureen Todhunter, our friend and professional editor who improved the quality of our work, and the assistance we received from graphic designer, Anna Ng, and from proofreader, Jo Anne Pomfrett.

Thanks also to the publishers and editors who gave us permission to reproduce or revise some figures, tables and text, as acknowledged in the chapter endnotes.

xiv

About the Authors

Jonathan D. Jansen (Foreword) is Vice Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State and President of the South African Institute of Race Relations. He holds a PhD from Stanford University and honorary doctorates of education from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), Cleveland State University (USA) and the University of Vermont (USA). He is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a fellow of the Academy of Science of the Developing World. His book Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past (2009) was listed as one of the best books of that year by the American Libraries Association. His new book, Schools that Work , uses video documentaries to capture what happens inside disadvantaged schools that nevertheless produce the best results in physical science and mathematics in South Africa. He also writes popular books – like Great South African Teachers (with two students), We Need to Talk and We Need to Act (2013) – and is a columnist for The Times and Die Burger . In 2013 he was awarded the Education Africa Lifetime Achiever Award in New York and the Spendlove Award from the University of California for his contributions to tolerance, democracy and human rights.

Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt is Director of OZI (Ortrun Zuber International P/L), working from home and specialising in action learning and action research, leadership development programs, postgraduate research training and supervision, including qualitative research methods. She is also Adjunct Professor at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia), Professor Extraordinaire at Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria, South Africa) and the North West University (Potchefstroom, South Africa), as well as Regional President Australasia at the Global University for Lifelong Learning (California, USA). Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Germany, she obtained four doctoral degrees while living in Australia (two PhDs, one DLitt and one DHon) and has published widely, including 40 books, 50 book chapters, 50 refereed journal articles and over 100 other articles, papers and reports, and has produced over 50 educational video programs.

Margaret Fletcher has been working as an educator for 40 years and has had a long association as a senior lecturer at Griffith University and as a consultant educator. Her research and publications focus on best

About the Authors xv

practice in teaching, learning and change facilitation with an emphasis on using action research methods to explore innovative and transforma-tive solutions to complex problems. She works with institutions and non-governmental organisations to manage change through devel-oping a culture of lifelong learning through critical reflection. She has worked internationally in South Africa, Sri Lanka and the South Pacific for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and currently is working with the Marovo Medical Foundation to improve primary health care in the Solomon Islands. Her work focuses on helping people find the time, tools, resources and energy to achieve their goals – both personally and professionally.

Judith Kearney is Director of Community Partnerships in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. In this role she works with academics, industry groups and community organi-sations to progress partnerships that promote engaged scholarship. Judith’s preferred methodology is participatory action learning and action research (PALAR). She has used this methodology in partnerships with refugee and migrant communities, especially Pacific Island migrant communities. Judith is a member of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research. Much of her research aims to engage capacity within commu-nities to promote educational and employment opportunities across the lifespans of individuals. A range of publications has resulted from this work.

xvi

Reviewers’ Comments

The main message of this book is to show how participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) can assist academics and other professionals to learn how to address the complex problems facing society today. With the plethora of books on various approaches to action research in the public domain, one might ask if we need another one? However, this book expands the notion of action research from mere methodology to a philosophy of being and a theory of learning. The authors pitch PALAR as an all-encompassing way of learning, researching and living in both professional and informal contexts. Drawing on their extensive experience as facilitators of organisational, professional and community development, they offer easy-to-understand explanations of very complex philosophical issues. Carefully selected case studies in the second half of the book help the reader understand how the authors apply the theories they expound in earlier chapters.

This book will thus be of benefit to researchers in community settings, supervisors of action research theses and for those seeking to improve their professional practices and transform their working environments. The clear and concise explanation in each chapter of terms used also makes this book an ideal companion for students and novice action researchers who often battle to make sense of the various concepts in action research. The authors argue strongly that a techno-rationalist paradigm of action research is no longer applicable in this turbulent world, and convincingly explain how PALAR is an affective-socio-cognitive model of learning that guides research that results in sustainable change on ontological, epistemological and practical levels. PALAR seems to bridge the gap between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ forms of action research that are often positioned, mistakenly in my opinion, as contradictory theories, rather than different expressions of the same basic philosophies, with the same transformative aims. As such, it is a timely and welcome addition to the action research literature.

— Professor Lesley Wood, North West University, South Africa.

This groundbreaking book offers a truly innovative contribution to our under-standing of the concept of professional learning as a key to self-directed life-long development. Its authors argue that time spent thinking about our actions is needed if real learning is to occur because critical reflection is a core compo-nent of holistic change. The book explains why professional learning has to be collaborative, holistic and transformative and why critical reflection and

Reviewers’ Comments xvii

behavioural change are so central to the process. The concept of ‘profession-alism’ is generally considered to encompass mastery of a body of knowledge and skills and the appropriate mental framework to apply it effectively in different situations. In exploring this concept, the authors observe that profes-sional learning applies across the spectrum of human activity – from tech-nically qualified professionals like medics to unqualified subsistence farmers with technical mastery based on traditional knowledge. Furthermore, profes-sional learning is a challenging, active process because to adapt, change, learn and relearn, a practitioner must think and act differently. It also requires an open mind and a willingness to learn from work – whether it is paid or volun-tary – and from others. As an advocate of lifelong learning for all, I warmly endorse this thought-provoking book.

— Dr Richard Teare, Co-Founder and President, Global University for Lifelong Learning, USA.

From the depths of their shared reflections, the authors have conjured up a conceptual delicacy, expertly balancing the elements of neuroscience, affective-socio-cognitive processes, critical reflection and participatory action learning and action research, with an overlay of South African insights enriched by an intervention in a Samoan urban community in Australia. The rich conceptual feast is embedded in models-for-action and practical tools and techniques. The book provides a tantalising treat for anyone facilitating, or engaged in, profes-sional learning, community capacity building or organisational development.

— Dr Ron Passfield, Organisational Consultant and Adjunct Professor, Australian Institute of Business (AIB),

Adelaide, Australia.

Is it still possible to write a genuinely innovative book in the fields of Action Learning and Action Research? These disciplines have, after all, been exten-sively discussed and are considered well established. Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, Margaret Fletcher and Judith Kearney have answered the question in the clearest terms – yes it is! Academically grounded, this book is at the cutting edge of its field. The clarity with which ideas are expressed, arguments posed and, critically, the experiential and practical basis upon which findings are based, make compelling reading. This thought-provoking book provides a treasure trove even for experienced readers in the field. Allow yourself to be guided on a contemporary journey towards PALAR. No visa required!

— Emeritus Professor Stephan Laske, University of Innsbruck, Austria.

This book is not a quick read. It is enlightening and provocative. And for the scholar–practitioner of action research it draws together disparate ideas,

xviii Reviewers’ Comments

concepts and methodological activity into a comprehensive framework that will deepen understanding and enhance praxis. This book aptly meets its goals to increase readers’ awareness of their affective, social and cognitive lens, informed by prior knowledge and beliefs, to open opportunities for new ideas to take hold; to understand how to facilitate the processes of learning and knowledge creation at the community level; and to access new evidence from the neurosciences on how the brain works, providing supportive biolog-ical explanations of how action inquiry and professional learning through critical reflection in particular contribute to knowledge creation and change management.

— Dr Wendy Rowe, Associate Professor, School of Leadership Studies, Royal Roads University, Canada.

This book offers a provocative and expansive look at its focus, the use of action learning and action research in the professional learning of people in a range of contexts. A feature I very much prize is the overt articulation of a number of underlying theories that illuminate the authors’ practices. I am familiar with most of these but find the incorporation of neuroscience and of negative dialectics novel. Using neuroscience as an explanation of how action research processes work will be new to most readers, I suspect. As one has come to expect from any book Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt is involved with, all authors draw solidly on relevant practical experience in countries where they practise. This application grounds and substantiates claims made in the more theoretical chapters. I believe this book will expand and positively contribute to the ongoing dialogue of action learning and action research.

— Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Development Unit, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

This work provides an important response to calls to simplify educational research by forcing complex and challenging questions into ever more narrow methodological channels when what is required is the kind of expansive and creative questions and responses suggested here.

— Professor Mary Brydon-Miller, Director, Action Research Centre, Educational Studies and

Urban Educational Leadership, University of Cincinnati, USA.

As higher education struggles to maintain its identity and becomes a value-for-money or fee-for-service commodity and faculty research is driven by journal rankings, rediscovering critical reflection that gives life to learning and research is becoming more urgent. The richness of this book is that it seeks to influence

Reviewers’ Comments xix

higher education by bringing together a conceptual framework that integrates developments in neuroscience, critical thinking and reflection, action research and professional learning and which is applied to real life cases.

— Dr David Coghlan, Associate Professor, Trinity College Dublin, and co-author of Doing Action Research in

Your Own Organisation (Sage).

xx

List of Tables

1.1 Basic assumptions of the main opposing views of problem solving 13

2.1 Alignment of brain/mind and PALAR principles 68 4.1 Examples of some kinds of action research 105 4.2 Types of action research 119 4.3 Three types of learning, reflection and action research 125 5.1 Professional learning program on action research 146 6.1 Target analysis results 179 6.2 Participants’ areas of interest prioritised by weighted

frequencies determined through the nominal group technique 181

8.1 Working definition of action research 227 8.2 Main requirements for authors of a quality action

research thesis 228 8.3 Main principles affecting the quality of a

postgraduate thesis 230

xxi

List of Figures

1.1 Theoretical embeddedness of participatory action learning and action research 5

1.2 The main aspects of participatory action learning and action research 11

1.3 Cynefin framework of complexity theory 20 1.4 Structure of this book 30 2.1 Affective-socio-cognitive model of learning 53 2.2 Integrated continuum of consciousness and affect

across the BodyBrainMind learning experience 58 2.3 An affective-socio-cognitive framework for PALAR 67 3.1 The PIPP model of critical reflection in and on professional

learning 95 3.2 Structural aspects of critical reflection in professional

practice and learning 97 4.1 Theoretical framework for PALAR 110 4.2 The spiral of PALAR cycles 115 4.3 The CRASP model of PALAR in higher education 121 4.4 Key characteristics of PALAR 128 5.1 Model of workshop cycles of adaptive planning, input,

process and outcomes 148 5.2 Characteristics of a quality professional learning program 159 5.3 A model of a professional learning program on

and through action research 161 5.4 A model of the three levels of action research 163 5.5 A model of meta-action research 164 6.1 The PIPP model of reflection on action 177 6.2 Meta-action research model 191 6.3 Model for lifelong learning through meta-action research 192 7.1 Community learning outcomes identified by program

participants 210 7.2 Personal learning outcomes identified by program

participants 211 7.3 Characteristics of a sustainable learning community 212 8.1 Conceptual model of an action research thesis 233

xxii List of Figures

8.2 The two buildings of ‘research’ and ‘writing’ an action research thesis 241

9.1 Core ideas towards a new vision for action research 267

xxiii

List of Acronyms

ABIDE Attractors, Barriers, Identities, Diversity, Environment AERA American Educational Research Association AI Appreciative Inquiry AL Action Learning ALAR Action Learning and Action Research ALARA Action Learning and Action Research Association ANC African National Council AR Action Research AREOL Action Research and Evaluation Online AS Action Science AusAID Australian Agency for International DevelopmentCAR Collaborative Action Research CARN Collaborative Action Research Network CPAR Critical Participatory Action Research CRASP Critical reflection, Research into practice, Accountability,

Self-evaluation and Professional learning DBA Doctor of Business Administration DF Daily Reflection Format EAR Educational Action Research EJOLTS Educational Journal of Living Theories EQ Emotional Quotient GTM Grounded Theory Method GULL Global University for Lifelong Learning HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council of England HELP Higher Education Loan Program (Australia) HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus (AIDS) IQ Intelligence Quotient IRB Institutional Review Board ISSS International Seminar Support Scheme (Australia) LAL Lifelong Action Learning LDP Leadership Development Program MOOC Mass Open Online Course NGT Nominal Group Technique NSDC National Staff Development Committee (Australia) OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

xxiv List of Acronyms

OHT Overhead transparencies PALAR Participatory Action Learning and Action Research PAR Participatory Action Research PI Pacific Islander PIP Preamble, Interview, Postscript PIPP Pre-action, In-action, Post-action and Pro-action Reflection PL Professional Learning PLS Personal Learning Statement R&D Research and development RAS Reticular Activating System RO Return on (Learning) Outcomes SCARF Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness SQ Spiritual Quotient SRHE Society for Research into Higher Education SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats TBL Triple Bottom Line Sustainability TUT Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa UFS The University of the Free State, Bloemfontein,

South Africa US University of Stellenbosch, South Africa VOSP Voice of Samoan People 3Rs Relationships, Reflection and Recognition 5Rs Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning and

Reconstructing 7Cs Communication, Collaboration, Commitment, Coaching,

Critical (and self-critical) attitude, Competence and Character