Challenging hegemony: reflections on reflection
by
Lesley Jolly
University of Queensland
In this paper I report on some of the more abstract findings from a CUTSD project which was designed to find ways of promoting reflexive practice amongst engineering undergraduates. One of the basic tenets of reflexive practice is that one must learn to identify and question presuppositions (starting assumptions). But part of what we do as University teachers is to socialize our students to the norms of the discipline, whatever that may be. I have found this matter of learning and practicing hegemonic behaviours to be particularly salient for engineers but I suspect it is significant in all disciplines. What I want to explore is the extent to which reflexivity can be expected of neophytes and how and when to introduce it. I can be contacted for further discussion at
Introduction
Over the last few years we have been hearing more and more that, in order for our teaching to be really effective, we must be more responsive to community and/or industry requirements. The current list of graduate attributes, which seems set to assume ever more importance in our lives as measures of our teaching, illustrates this tendency well. Of the 12 attributes in this University's list, only one mentions the kind of detailed knowledge of a distinct discipline that many among us, including students, still see as the core of a university education. Many of the others are concerned with skills such as communication, team work and life-long learning which are as much to do with the person as with training. How to develop the desirable personal qualities these attributes demand is problematic in all disciplines, but the project I have been involved in has been centred on engineering, so I will be starting from there. The culture of engineering has some characteristics which help us to see, I will argue, just how great a change is being asked of us as educators, but also, perhaps, some possible ways forward.
Most of the following data comes from a CUTSD project begun in 1998 and initiated in the first instance by David Radcliffe, Ian Cameron and others in the School of Engineering and I am indebted to them for their support and input to the project. Jim Litster and Cynthia Mitchell have also been unstinting in their contribution and without all of these people the project would not have happened.
Why reflection?
Engineering is one of those professions that has been hearing for some time that a narrowly technical focus is no longer acceptable, that engineers need to change their practice and universities need to change their training to be more responsive to a changed and ever-changing industrial workplace. Today's engineer is required to communicate with people from a broad variety of backgrounds, considering their social and environmental concerns throughout the design process. It is no longer acceptable to embark upon the task of design with concern for technical issues alone. Professional engineers are now under pressure to give due consideration to the sociological and environmental implications of their designs. In order to cope with such demands, it is necessary for engineering graduates to display the ability to undertake self-directed, life long learning (Mitchell, Jolly and McLeod 1998). They not only need to learn skills like team work and communication, they need to be able to apply them in situations that cannot be predicted by their trainers.
The need for such skills is emphasised by industry members and also by the Institution of Engineers Australia, and has been said to be a concern both here and overseas for a number of years. In their report, Changing the Culture: Engineering Education into the Future (1996), the Institution of Engineers, Australia recommend that in addition to technical competencies, engineering educators equip their graduates with:
- the ability to communicate effectively, not only with engineers but also with the community at large;
- the ability to function effectively as an individual and in multi-disciplinary and multicultural teams, with the capacity to be a leader or manager as well as an effective team member;
- an understanding of the social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities of the professional engineer, and the need for sustainable development;
- an understanding of and commitment to professional and ethical responsibilities; expectation and capacity to undertake life-long learning.
The emphasis here on contextualised practice, engineering as a profession conducted within social and cultural settings, suggests that experiential learning should be fruitful mode of inculcating the desired properties. As suggested by its name, experiential learning theory emphasises the central role that experience plays in learning. Experiential learning theory (Dewey 1933; Kolb 1984) espouses the view that ideas are constructed and reconstructed through experience, rather than existing as fixed and unchallengeable patterns of thought. True learning occurs only through reflecting upon experiences, according to Dewey (1933).
Describing reflection as a process that enables connections between the various elements of an experience, Dewey refers to reflection on experience as a learning loop that runs back and forth between the experience and the relationships being inferred (cited in Boud, Keogh & Walker 1988:12). The concept of the learning loop has gained popularity through the work of Kolb and his four stage experiential learning model (1984:21): 1) experience; 2) reflection; 3) generalising or theorising; and 4) planning. Therefore, the ideal experiential learner will be able to
- ) involve themselves in new experiences without bias;
- reflect upon experiences from multiple perspectives;
- ) integrate their observations into logically sound theories; and
- use these theories in decision making and problem solving (Kolb 1984:30).
This kind of practice is precisely what is being promoted by new accreditation processes in engineering (IEAust 1997). However, I shall argue below that the profession's traditional emphasis on solving well-defined problems (a tendency to focus on the problem) inhibits the development of true reflexivity as a process of focussing on personal experience.
In an oft-quoted development of the loop metaphor, Argyris distinguishes between single-loop learning and double-loop learning: single loop learning occurs when "an error is detected and corrected without questioning or altering the underlying values of the system" (1993:8), whereas double loop learning occurs when errors "are corrected by first examining and altering the governing variables and then the actions" (1993:9). While this is certainly necessary as a first step to a true improvement of practice, rather than just local adjustment, all too often the engineer will translate this dictum in purely technical terms. Thus, students in our project very often identified the governing variables as solely technical ones, ignoring the difficulties they had experienced in group work or their inability to seek help with their problems.
Schön (1983) also sees the learner as engaging in experience, reflection, restructuring and planning. However, he advances the notion of reflection by distinguishing between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Best known for his use of the term 'the reflective practitioner', Schön postulates that our knowing is in our action, and that such knowledge is tacit (1983:49). When reflecting-in-action, "There is some puzzling phenomenon with which the individual is trying to deal. As he [sic] tries to make sense of it, he also reflects on the understandings which have been implicit in his action, understandings which he surfaces, criticises, restructures, and embodies in further action" (Schön 1983:50). Note once again that the discussion is of action, and can easily be translated to a problem-focus rather than a self-focus.
John Cowan (1997) extended Schön's work to encompass a third reflective loop: reflection-for-action. Reflection-for-action is anticipative: here the learner "define[es] their aspirations...[and]...establishes priorities for subsequent learning" (Cowan 1997). This formulation is described in Cowan's "loopy diagram" (cited in Matthews and Sayers 1997):
While Schön tends to use the terms 'reflection' and 'reflexive thinking' interchangeably, Darling (1998:4) uses the time at which introspection occurs to distinguish between the two: reflection occurs after an interaction whereas, like Cowan's model, reflexive processes incorporate introspection within the period of interaction. Darling (1998:3-4) further elaborates that reflection is related to self and improving future practice whereas reflexivity is a pro-active tool to simultaneously improve communication and provide insight into priorities prior to reaction. Reflexivity can therefore be seen as the application of the fruits of reflection, and a higher order skill. Our projects aim to use techniques for reflective thinking in order to develop truly reflexive practice in engineers. That is, we seek to incorporate refelction into the being of the engineeer, to make it the centre of a practice that will allow for life-long responsiveness to real world circumstances, to other people and to change. In comparison with Cowan's loopy diagram our ideal focusses not on experience, as somthing outside the person, but on the person's attitude to experience:
Here the area E represents not experience but the practicing engineer (or the engineering profession), the core from which reflection emanates and to which it returns in a never-ending loop (my thanks to Cynthia Mitchell for this image). Reflection is now a tool in the continuous construction of reflexivity, reflexivity is a way of relating to the world and a basis for understanding and responding to experience.
Many stereotypes circulate in our society of engineers as the epitome of the hard-nosed empiricist, so that a demand for the engineer to adopt such a relativist position would seem doomed to failure. However, the continuing demands from industry for change in engineering education over many years suggest that nothing less than such an attitudinal change can be successful. Furthermore, it is my experience that one is just as likely to meet the requisite open-mindedness in engineering faculty as elsewhere in the academy. However, the whole academy's preoccupation with privileged domains of content knowledge is played out particularly clearly in engineering and that has had consequences for how far and how fast our project has been able to go, and sheds an interesting light on questions of how the graduate attributes will be delivered in any faculty.
Achieving reflexivity
While training in reflection may be achieved through a variety of techniques, the act of transferring thought processes into words may lead to higher levels of abstraction and analysis, thus rendering the reflective journal a particularly appropriate tool for the development of such skills. While other Schools of Engineering use the reflexive journal, it is most commonly introduced in first year with little later reinforcement. We decided to introduce it during semester 1, 1998, in fourth year design subjects in chemical and mechanical engineering as an advanced skill. Since these subjects were largely self-directed and students worked in small groups, it was hoped that the journals would allow students to work on their group and personal management skills as well as the more technical issues. As well as keeping a journal on the progress and problems in their project, students were asked to write a reflective account of a critical incident which occurred during their design project.
Students' reflective thinking was assessed according to how well they met the four stages of Tripp's (1993) procedure for critical incident analyses, namely:
- describe an incident
- provide a contextual explanation of the inciden
- find a more general meaning
- articulate a position
In both the chemical and mechanical engineering departments the journals and critical incident analyses were incorporated into the assessment for the subject, but was given a much higher percentage of the marks in one than the other. This had a significant effect on the degree to which the students took the task seriously, with more percentage points eliciting a much more serious approach. The necessary skills were introduced in seminars run by me, a social scientist, and my assistant Abby McLeod-Palma, who also carried out a weekly follow up. While student performance of the critical incident analysis varied, few students managed to progress solidly beyond stage 1, with attempts to do so being tokenistic in nature. At the end of semester, students willing to submit their journals for perusal did so. Journal entries were of similar nature to the critical incidents; description of group process was adequate, yet little attempt was made to relate incidents to broader issues and forward planning was made without reflection.
We were aware of a common perception amongst the students that so-called "soft skills" were not "real engineering" and that this inhibited their learning. In second semester 1998 we therefore developed a protocol for a third year design subject in mechanical engineering using the Institution of Engineers Australia's model for a professional practice report leading to corporate membership. This allowed us to model the practice of reflection on one's own performance and the writing of a critical incident report on the semester's work as "proper engineering". The subject entailed individual rather than group work but the outcome of the critical incident reviews in this case showed that these students were aware of many of the same problems as those working in groups.
Our first impression on reading the ninety four critical incident papers from third and fourth year students was that they focussed largely on mechanical issues and reflected relatively little on performance. However, once the papers were coded and analysed using the NUDIST program for analysis of qualitative data a quite different picture emerged. While technical issues were mentioned quite often in association with the incidents that students judged to be critical, they were rarely critical in themselves. The exception was the case of a problem with a computer program which was mentioned four times as often as any other technical matter. While only the fourth year students worked in groups, some of the issues that arose for them in group work, such as poor communication and time management, were also identified as major concerns by the third years working individually. Only 7 of the ninety-four papers picked a positively critical incident but those students identified a very similar pattern of contributing factors to those depicted in figure 2.
Where the critical incident related to matters of design process, poor problem solving skills were approximately three times as likely to be the cause as lack of technical skills. In particular, students identified failure to use a variety of sources for ideas and advice, and a tendency to settle too early on a single solution, as recurrent problems
. Elsewhere (Figure 2) they were aware of poor performance in the areas of communication, time management, organisation and taking on working roles within the group as impeding their ability to achieve their design.
Students were advised that their adoption of group roles such as chairperson, timekeeper, agenda setter and gofer would be crucial to the success of their work together, but found it quite difficult to spontaneously take on any roles or co-ordinate their activities without duplication. They tended to blame this on a lack of leadership within the groups, each waiting for someone else to give orders, or complaining about their own not being heeded. As with all student groups, there were some individuals who did not pull their weight and a tendency for people to work away as individuals, not sharing results and giving themselves more work.
This failure to organise the groups was generally linked to other faults in organisation, which many students saw as failures to set rules and deadlines in the light of collective aims and objectives, a quite sophisticated insight. Those students in the third year class who were working individually also identified the failure to set deadlines as a problem.
While time management could be seen as an organisational problem, it was not always identified that way by the students, but rather as a matter of unrealistic expectations. The problem of poor organisation was also linked for both sets of students to poor communication. Those working in groups felt that better organisation would have improved communication while those working alone were aware that they shrank from asking advice and discussing their work with others, to their detriment.
It seems, then, that the students were quite successful at the first stage of Tripp's procedure, that of describing a situation, even though they sometimes remained in ignorance of what it was they were describing, and in nearly all cases they were rather unsuccessful in relating that experience to possible future action. In practical terms, even this level of performance allowed us to reach certain conclusions about the use of reflective methods in engineering education, namely:
- Our initial impression that little real reflexivity had been achieved was only corrected by systematic analysis. This perhaps indicates a deafness on our part to students' language about their own processes.
- Student attitudes clearly evidenced the need for engineering staff to model reflective practice and place regular emphasis on its value as a professional learning tool. Instruction by someone from outside the discipline did not convince the students of the importance of the task.
- Students emphasised the need for regular feedback on reflective journals, once more highlighting the necessity to make the reflective process central to the engineering process.
- If students are to take the exercise seriously, a reasonable percentage of marks must be allocated to tasks involving reflective thinking (Jolly, Radcliffe and McLeod-Palma 1999).
So to be successful, reflection must be thoroughly built into what the students learn engineering to be. But there is a paradox here that is not confined to engineering. Insofar as we are preoccupied with what our particular disciplines consider to be their niche in the world, we tend to want to give students sets of rules for practice. This and that constitute disciplinary knowledge, this and that are the instrumental skills needed to apply that knowledge in the world. But the use of reflective techniques by the truly reflexive practitioner and life-long learner requires a deeply enquiring attitude to all knowledge and all experience. How can we, as teachers, avoid being hamstrung by this paradox? Butler (1996), building on Benner (1984), suggests a model of professional development that I think allows us not only to plan for the development of reflective/reflexive practitioners, but also to identify a place for ourselves as educators within the process, a place that makes best use of our disciplinary expertise and still addresses the development of non-content graduate attributes.
Reflection and hegemony
Butler's model retains the starting point of his sources in seeing the initial (novice) stage of development as dependent wholly on rules, but rejects the attendant assumption that rules become unconscious, but remain the basis of practice (Butler 1996). Instead, he suggests that higher orders of practice, the competence and proficiency that the world of practice demands, are arrived at only after substantial reflection on practice which allows the practitioner to gain as much from experience as they do from received wisdom. I have expressed what this means for the prosecution of more responsible engineering education in bold in the following table.
| STAGE | CHARACTERISTICS | STRATEGY |
| Novice |
No experience
Sticks strictly to rules Unable to decide which tasks most relevant |
Limit expectations until experienced gained
Provide clear rule statements
|
| Advanced beginner |
Low level unsupervised performance
Belief in single solution Ask for answers Unwilling to explore problems |
Help prioritising
Teach prioritising
|
| Competent |
Can analyse complex problems
Uses conscious, thoughtful, analytic reflection Conscious planning Lacks speed and flexibility of higher levels |
Involve in decision making and planning
Demand more self-government of students
|
| Proficient |
Intuitive response to "big picture"
Uses experience of 'typical' events Considers fewer options than competent person |
Draw publicly on experience in context of actual problem
Train tutors to call on experience
|
| Expert |
Acts "by instinct"
Is unaware of rules |
Document both successful and unsuccessful interventions to bring expertise into conscious knowledge Involve instructors in reflection on their own practice |
Before pointing out the ways in which such a proposal challenges the hegemonies of the engineering profession and the academy at large, I must make clear what I mean by the term hegemony.
It is a term associated with the political theorist Gramsci, which has been glossed in my own discipline of anthropology as "the cultural dispositions and social institutions that predispose consent to (if not compliance with) politically repressive regimes" (Knauft 1996:187). Political repression is not the issue here, but rather a set of practices which do not easily admit of other ways of doing things - those practices that are thought of as "real engineering", for instance. In the case of engineering, the dispositions and institutions that maintain these practices include positivist approaches to knowledge and sets of values such as a high degree of individual competitiveness, the valuing of long work hours for their own sake and the sacrifice of other aspects of self and life to the professional identity (Downey and Lucena 1997). These are all traits that militate gainst the development of the professional self through reflection. There is evidence that such cultural factors are also common in the sciences (Seymour and Hewitt 1997), and it seems likely that to some extent all disciplines have mechanisms which tend to reify and ascribe superordinate value to received wisdom and traditional ways of getting wisdom. To the extent that this is true, then, the kind of program that I am suggesting as necessary to the development of non-content specific graduate attributes offers a challenge to disciplinary hegemonies.
The first way it does this is by requiring that the process start, not with novice students, but with expert teachers. Before we can begin to develop reflexivity in our students we need to bring into consciousness the real detail of our own practice, including our failures and the moments when we refused to comply with the dominant hegemonies of our discipline. All too often such moments are glossed over or represented as a superior "feel" for the work (Butler 1996) or rationalised as far as possible to make them appear to follow the rules. This model challenges experts to think about what they do outside of the rules. This inevitably raises questions about what the scope of the rules should be. As the table suggests, there needs to be a starting point, a set of premises the student can reasonably adopt as enabling before they move beyond them, but the nature of what should be "core" is too often taken for granted. In the engineering realm I have repeatedly been told that practicing engineers never use differential calculus, yet it is still taught as "core". A reflexive model requires that process be valued as much as "fact" or skills, and this is perhaps is greatest challenge to the hegemonies of all our disciplines.
References
Argyris, C., On organizational learning. Blackwell Business, Cambridge, 1993.
Benner, P., From Novice to Expert. Menlo Park CA, Addison-Wesley, 1984.
Boud, P., Keogh, R & Walker, D., What is reflection in learning? In Boud, P., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. eds. Reflection: Turning experience into learning, pp. 7-17. Kogan Page, London, 1985.
Butler, J., Professional Development: Practice as text, reflection as process and self as locus. Australian Journal of Education 40(3):265-283, 1996
Cowan, J, Stockholm Pre-conference Workshop, Teaching science for tertiary students II: Learning how to think like an engineer. Stockholm, June 1997.
Darling, I., Action evaluation and action theory: An assessment of the process and its connection to conflict resolution. pp 1-6. The on-line conference on "The reflective practitioner." Dedicated to Donald Schön on ACTLIST. 1st of March to 3rd of April 1998.
. Dewey, J., How we think: a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Heath, Boston, 1933.
Downey, G.L and J.C. Lucena, Engineering selves: hiring in to a contested field of education, pp.117-141 in G.L. Downey and J Dumit (eds) Cyborgs and Citadels. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1997.
Institution of Engineers, Australia, Changing the Culture: Engineering Education into the Future, Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1996.
Institution of Engineers, Australia. (IEAust), Manual for the accreditation of professional engineering courses. Institution of Engineers Australia, Australia, 1997.
Jolly, L., Radcliffe, D. and McLeod-Palma, A., Developing reflexivity in undergraduate engineers. A paper presented to the 11th Australasian Association for Engineering education conference, Adelaide, September 199.
Mitchell, C., Jolly, L. and McLeod, A., On the Way to Reflexivity, paper presented to 10th annual conference Australasian Association for Engineering Education, Gladstone, 1998.
Knauft, B., Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology. Routledge, New York, 1996.
Kolb, D., Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1984.
Matthew, B and Sayers, P., Self-reflection in the education of engineers - observations os students and staff wielding a formative and summative tool - based on parallel examples of student learning and organisational development. Unpublished paper, University of Bradford, UK.
Schön, D. The reflective practitioner. Basic Books, New York, 1983.
Seymour, E. and N.M. Hewitt, Talking About Leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences. Westview Press, . Boulder, Colorado, 1997.
Tripp, D., Critical incidents in teaching: developing professional judgement. Routledge, London, 1993.