Learning in vivo

Get education into simulations rather than the opposite

The same probably applies to simulations, namely: “Rather than striving to get games into education, educators should be investigating ways to get education into games.” (Royle, 2008).

Although gamers often claim that playing is educational; gamers concede (laughingly) that much of this learning has little relevance to ordinary life. Teacherised commercial games that embed, add or link educational/curriculum content are questioned. A new genre is emerging characterised by gamelike learning instead of purely entertaining based on the pedagogy of problem-based learning. The real learning does not happen in game; instead players must solve problems to progress through the game; they can only solve a given problem by accumulating the necessary tools and experience in lower levels of the game.

Storytelling is a further potent learning tool, because they enable listeners to make connections between what is said and their own experience—this helps create meaning and can trigger people into action.

Royle, K. 2008. Game-Based Learning: A Different Perspective. Innovate, 4(4), April/May 2008. Retrieved electronically 23 October 2011 from: http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol4_issue4/Game-Based_Learning-__A_Different_Perspective.pdf

Reflective practice for collective learning

Raelin (2000: 101) calls "the process of public reflection" reflective practice; it is a community of inquiry and creates a collective identity. He defines reflection as "the practice of periodically stepping back to ponder the meaning to self and others in one's immediate environment about what has transpired. It illuminates what has been experienced by both self and others, providing a basic for future education", he adds.

Raelin (2000: 101-2) emphasises learning dialogues, as element of reflective practice, taking place in the security of trustworthy peers based on the direct experiences of work. Raelin (p. 103) refers to Plato's statement that 'the unexamined life isn't worth living' meaning that others need to be included in the examination of life experiences. It is more than collective naval gazing; it isintorspection midst of practice and in the presence of others.

"Reflective practitioners 'reinvest' in learning by participating in continuing education" and "engage in problem posing as much as problem solving, continually expand[ing] their solution database rather than select the first solution that works, view inconsistencies as opportunities rather than inconveniences, and enjoy reflecting back on their decision making rather than sealing off debate" (Raelin 2000: 105). Four explicit reflective practices that can be used each on its own or combined are presented by Raelin (2000: 115-145):

1. Learning teams

Work-based learning often involves action learning in teams. Co-workers undertake projects together, discuss dilemmas of work actions, as well as "the application or misapplication of concepts and theories to these actions" (p. 115). The learning device is to pose questions to one another.

2. Journaling

But "the journal is arguably the most endemic technique we have to enhance our self-reflection" admits Raelin (p. 124). Yet, he continues, although it is "often used as an introspective tool for personal growth, it can also serve as an aid to bring together the inner and outer parts of our lives. It offers a lens to view experience—be it before, during, or after the event under scrutiny—and it even allows further reflection on the journal entries themselves." The journal is a potent vehicle to collect private data for public learning dialogues and may include any one or more of the following:

• Logs or reports of specific factual experiences.
• Lists of observations or ideas.
• Portraits or descriptions of people or situations.
• Memoirs of personal experiences.
• Catalogues of feelings/perceptions in situations or about people.
• Intimate accounts including personal sentiments, confessions and notes.
• Dialogues recordings.
• Conceptual understandings.
• Commentary of applications of concepts.
• Social histories (stories) of issues unfolding.
• Maps of consciousness to capture the state of mind.
• Guided imagery, meditated frames of reference and/or dreams.
• Altered points of view in different contexts or timeframes.
• Contradictions or dilemmas experiences or observed.
• Inconsistencies noticed
• Surprises experiences.

3. Developmental planning

Developmental planning often linked to career development. It involves the individual interests, needs and expectations, as well as the organisational objectives and resource requirements. It is often an element of the overall organisational performance management strategy.

4. Developmental relationships

Examples of developmental relationships include coaching and mentoring.

Raelin, J.A. 2000. Work-based learning—the new frontier of management development. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Simply asking not necessary reliable

Most of my blog posts from 27 December 2009 to 4 January 2010 are about learning from life stories and narratives. Before I go any further, I feel it is necessary to convey the cautionary remarks of Raymond Lee (2000: 1). He cites Allan Kellehear (1993), who wrote "we ask people about themselves, and they tell us … the assumption is that important 'truths' about people are best gained through talk—a sometimes direct, sometimes subtle, interrogation of experience, attitude and belief". Lee states that the problem with what we gain by simply asking is that it is often influenced by the dynamics surrounding the interaction between the researcher and the researched—the act of eliciting data in itself may affect the truthfulness of the data. Lee then continues to explain what unobtrusive methods/measure mean, namely "data gathered by means that do not involve direct elicitation of information from research subjects". He encourages researchers to be attentive to physical traces (or the cliché 'foot print')—the evidence that people leave behind.

I believe it is important to collect data in different kinds of ways; it is a form of triangulation, i.e. data triangulation to contrast the data and validate the data if it yields similar findings (Groenewald 2003:10). Janesick (2000) promotes the concept crystallisation as a far better lens than triangulation, through which to view especially qualitative research design. The image of a crystal, rather than a land surveyor with a triangle, is put forward. Crystallisation represents a conceptual move from geometry to physics. A crystal combines symmetry and substance with an infinite variety of shapes, transmutations, multi-dimentionsionalities and angles. Crystals grow, change and what is seen when viewed depends on how it is viewed and how we hold it up to the light or not. The notion of crystallisation encourages an eclectic approach to the research design, the synthesis of multiple paradigms and methodology.

References

Groenewald, T. 2003. The contribution of co-operative education in growing talent. DPhil dissertation, University of Johannesburg. Electronically accessed on 6 January 2009 from: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/106

Janesick, V. J. (2000). The choreography of qualitative research design. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) (2000). Handbook of qualitative research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Kellehear, A. 1993. The unobtrusive researcher: a guide to methods. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Lee, R.M. 2000. Unobtrusive methods in social research. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Checklist for social research

Robert K. Merton's contributions to sociological research spanned more than five decades. O'Rand (1998: 55-56) presents a chronological (according to publication date) checklist for social research.

Download Merton table

O'Rand, A.M. 1998. The craft of life course studies (pp. 52-74). In Giele, J.Z. & Elder (Jr.), G.H. (Eds.) 1998. Methods of life course research—qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Life experiences of cohorts

Matilda Riley (1998: 30), at a ripe age of 87—died at age 93 on 14 November 2004, two years after her husband Jack—identifies an important principle, namely "Because society changes, members of different cohorts (born a different times) grow older in different ways (the 'cohort principle')". She cites a 1972 statement (p. 32), namely that "Over the life course, individuals enter roles but relinquish others, acquire certain capacities and motivations but loose others".

Riley (1998: 39) uses an escalator as metaphor for aging—"as people age, they move diagonally upward with age and across time (in this figure of speech they move through different societal scenery)". However, unlike the static floors that are connected by escalator, societal structures are continually changing. Riley (1998: 43) also emphasises that life courses do not only relate to society at large, but also to smaller groups within.

Riley, M.W. 1998. A life course approach—autobiographical notes (pp. 28-51). In Giele, J.Z. & Elder (Jr.), G.H. (Eds.) 1998. Methods of life course research—qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Life-experience Research

I realised this morning that my interest in the wider scope of learning in vivo (learning from real-life experiences), combined with my interest in qualitative research, led to a focus on Life-story Interviewing, Narrative Research and Life Course Research.

In the forward of a publication on methods of life course research (Giele & Elder 1998) Anne Colby states about crafting life course studies that any point in a person's lifespan must be viewed and the consequence of both past experiences and future expectations. The researcher, she indicates, must both specify the research problem and understand how to organise the data, by using key concepts such as events, timing, impact of the period, and the distinctive experience of the particular cohorts.

Giele and Elder (1998), in their preface, states that the publication focuses on how one does life course research—the art and method of appropriate research design: how to collect life history data; the search for meaningful patterns; analyses of longitudinal data in qualitative form; conceptualisation of age, period and cohort; locating of research participants (respondents) to undertake follow-up surveys; the organising of life events' data; and the recording of data on a retrospective or prospective calendar.

In the introduction, the life course mode of enquiry, to part one of the publication, Giele and Elder (1998: 2-4) suggest a number of general principles:

• Bidirectional focus on social change—the the life events as well as the transitional rates of an individual or group
• Location—of time and place includes history, social structure and culture (p. 9)
• Linked lives—the interaction of individuals with societal institutions and social groups (p. 9)
• Human agency—embodied in the active pursuit of personal goals and the sense of self (p.10)
• Timing—the chronology of events of an individual's life that combines simultaneously that of personal, group and historical markers (p. 10)
• Transitional rate—is a comparative technique for assessment of change in individuals or groups at two different times
• Sociology of age—age, structure (constituent) and the dynamics of ageing as explications of differences in consciousness and status, bringing about social change
• Paradigm shift—a replacement of older deterministic and stage concepts of human development through many technical and theoretical steps

Giele, J.Z. & Elder (Jr.), G.H. (Eds.) 1998. Methods of life course research—qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Analysis of experiential narrative instead of portfolios

It has often been said that it is naive to assume that students would actually learn from an in vivo (real-life) setting what they need to—i.e. what has been specified in the curriculum. It is my experience that students do not necessary experience, despite prior arrangements, what they should from a work placement. This is because of various reasons, among others work pressures. Besides the learning environmental factors, the student's own attitude may also restrict the student's learning.

In vivo learning educators/coordinators/work-integrated learning lecturers have tried many ways to bring about the desired learning of students, for example:

• Conducting on-campus orientation prior to placement of students in the in vivo learning setting (going for experiential/work-integrated learning)
• Providing students with work-integrated learning guidelines, detailing the relevant learning outcomes students must achieve and specifying what evidence of learning is required (this is especially important in the case of distance education institutions), for example, what the portfolio of evidence or work-project report should include
• Providing mentors (the work-place learning supervisors) with guidelines detailing what the students should be exposed to, their roles a learning mentors and what evidence of learning is expected from students
• Monitoring the learning and progress of students during in vivo/work-integrated learning
• Facilitate debriefing (or reflection) of students on return from in vivo/work-integrated learning stints away from campus
• Providing students with log books (to capture their experience and have each entry ratified) or with journals to capture their learning
• Require of students to present their portfolios to a panel that would interrogate their mastery of the specified learning outcomes

What about making use of story-telling and narrative analysis?

The in vivo/work-integrated learning guide would include the learning outcomes to be accomplished and suggested in vivo (real-life) settings.

The guide would further include (a) examples of daily journaling and/or recording of experiences, observations and realisations; (b) some indicators about story telling; and (c) a narrative analysis model—such as Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach and Zilber (1998)—with basic explanations.

The instruction would be simple:

1. when the student is of opinion that she/he has mastered the specified learning outcomes she/he must write or tell the story about the learning experiences. If told, the student must transcribe the audio recording to text and edit it for readability
2. to do an analysis of her/his own narrative/experience-story (making use of the model in the guide)
3. illustrate/explain/qualify by linking up the analysis of the narrative with the specified learning outcomes to substantiate why she/he is of opinion the outcomes were mastered/accomplished

What do blog readers think? Could such an approach work? If readers think not, why? What are the potential pitfalls?

Feedback from a friend:

"Hi, Thomas.

Taking a rather oblique look at the problem, I'd ask, "What is it about the situation that mitigates against the desired outcome?"  Assuming the student has been given all the essential input (as you've listed) he knows what is wanted of him.   OK.  He's probably in a real-life workplace for the first time; it's and entirely new and perhaps stressful experience.  He's encountering the sort of people, rules, procedures and environment he's never experienced before.  Pressures will be on him to perform a job.   He may be earning a salary for the first time - which will be a distraction.  It will be during what is normally a holiday period, and his friends may be on the beach, or whatever. -- Just some ideas, based on observation of "Vac Students" in the Chemical industry."

Narrative Analysis Model

Narratives and life story research stand in contrast to the sterile positivistic research paradigm. It is often criticised as a form of art rather than research, because it requires talent, intuition and field/clinical experience—it cannot be taught as clear methods and systems.

Narrative, may be defined as a discourse as a means to 'represent a connected succession of happenings' (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber 1998:2)

Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach and Zilber (1998:12) give two main independent dimensions (as well as middle points along both) for reading, interpreting and analysing life stories:

1. Holistic versus categorical approaches—note the contrasting units of analysis: the story as a whole versus an utterance or sections abstracted from.
2. Content versus form—the traditional dichotomy concerning literary reading of texts: the explicit account, e.g. what happened, why and who participated from the standpoint of the teller/narrator; versus the implicit content, e.g. the meaning of the story or parts thereof, what are the traits or motives of individuals or what a image the narrator uses symbolises? Other reading ignore the content and consider the form, e.g. the structure of the plot, sequence of events, the story's complexity and coherence, feelings possibly evoked by the story, the style and metaphors or words (such as passive or active voice) used. Exploration of the form is often done to explore deeper layers of a story below the obvious content.

They (1998:13) suggest that the two dimensions intersect to form a matrix of four cells—representing four modes, which are not always as clear in the reality of analysis and interpretation:

HOLISTIC-CONTENT Focus on the content of the complete life story	HOLISTIC-FORM Looking at the structure/plot of the complete life story—how the story develops
CATEGORICAL-CONTENT A content-analysis of the topics, utterances extracted, classified and grouped	CATEGORICAL-FORM Focus on the discrete stylistic or linguistic characteristics of aspects of the story

Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. & Zilber, T. 1998. Narrative research—reading, analysis and interpretation. (Applied Social Research Methods Series Vol 47). Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Life-story research

The goal of the researcher is to make meaning from the narrative—what does the person's story mean. This emphasises the basic and important difference between qualitative and quantitative research—the design of the latter is such that the role of personal interpretation is limited and enquiry seeks to determine the relationships between a small number of variables. The design of qualitative studies is more open-ended, seeks broader and unanticipated patterns, is subjective (Atkinson 1998:64).

Introduction

All humans have stories, some many about the rich life they lived or are living. Everything happens in story form. We are often struck by how another person's story moves us—how it connects to something we are familiar with—the story's 'orenda'. Truly hearing and comprehending a life story can be transforming

Life story research is not about generalisations, but about the uniqueness of specific personal worlds or first-person narratives. The role of an individual's life, within a specific context, is best comprehended by means of story, which makes life explicit. A life story or slice-of-life serves as vehicle to gather central elements, events, beliefs of a person, to integrate them and to derive meaning. To tell the story requires reflection on experiences and events. The teller must give words to feelings, thoughts and sensory data.

The life story interview is a means to an end, namely to facilitate the story telling and to record it. The interview is an art that must allow for flexibility—it is impossible to foresee how the story would unfold. As research methodology it has its own standards of validity and reliability, namely internal consistency, corroboration and persuasion (pp. 58-62). The researcher must suspend all judgement. When people share their stories they are revealing their own inner lives.

Pre-interview preparation

Decisions need to be taken who need to be interviewed—typically those people with the relevant lived experiences.

Next they should be approached, the goal explained and they should be granted the option to share their stories or not. If in agreement, the person/s should be asked to prepare be reflecting on their personal memories. Perhaps individuals may have some hard copy or digital material (photos, etc.) to support and enrich their stories.

Then the appointment should be diarised—Atkinson recommends two to three hours, often more spread over a period, depending on the breath of the story.

The necessary functioning audio recorder and sufficient tapes must be acquired and the interviewer must familiarise her/himself with the equipment.

The right relaxed and comfortable setting for the interview is important—a space where the interviewee can tell her/his story uninterrupted.

Doing the interview

Start by recapping the purpose: to listen to and record her/his lived experiences with regard to …. Obtain informed consent about recording the story.

Ask the interviewee to start where she/he would like to begin the telling. Listen carefully and ask open-ended questions when not clear, for example 'I do not understand, please explain' or 'what did an event mean to you?' or 'how did you feel about …?' (Atkinson 1998:43-53 for example questions).

The interview is not a conversation. The interviewer is merely a facilitator or guide for the journey down memory lane. The interviewee should do most of the talking.

If the narrating wanders away from the tutorials, bring her/him back politely.

Be prepared, emotions might emerge. Be sensitive and do not try to fill pauses—it is better to wait than to interrupt silences. Respect boundaries—if a narrator does not want to share certain experiences let it be.

Be grateful for the time and the story shared—always remember the story teller owns the story. Restate what will happen with the recording. Emphasise the narrator's right to remain anonymous and/or exclusion of parts of the story. Explain that the story shared would be transcribed and returned for correction, changes, editions and/or verification.

Mark the recorded tape/s (primary 'document') clearly in order to know which is which and what the sequence is.

Transcribing

The recorded dialogue is far from useful. It needs to be carefully transformed into a readable narrative (the secondary document) that is true to the narrator's words.

Transcription can be very time consuming. Listen bit by bit, play and replay, until you are sure of the words spoken. A verbatim transcription is not necessary, editing for clarity and fluency is good, but should not change the essence of the narrative. False starts and fillers (like um's, uh's, etc) may be excluded. Any additional words should be in a different font and 'stage directions' added in brackets, e.g. the narrators sigh, laughter, tongue click, etc.

Once the transcription is done, do a quality check by re-listening to the recording while reading the transcription. Then sent the transcription to the interviewee to look over and edit as she/he see fit. This is the narrator/interviewer's privilege, because it is her/his story. If the narrator/interviewer makes corrections, delete and/or add, make amplifications or any other changes; then the narrator/interviewer's edited version become the primary document and the recording the rough draft.

Interpreting

One of the potential aspects of interpretation of a series of several life stories is to pick up from individual unique stories possible universal stories—known as personal mythmaking.

The researcher or group of researchers, need to share all our transcriptions with each other. Everybody involved in the project must read all the stories with the aim of finding meaning and in particular shared meaning—where stories intersect or are parallel and reinforce each other.

It is important to keep in mind that stories are themselves already interpretations. As research team we need to find the meaning/s.

Conclusion

Theory directs quantitative research—there is always a hypothesis being tested. In qualitative research the opposite is true, especially in the case of life stories. As a team of researchers we need to suspend theoretical assumptions until after the interpretation phase. At this point we would probably need to do a literature review to ascertain what theory and/or frame of reference already exists in the body of knowledge.

Ultimately, the researcher/s reverse the process with the view of publication:

• Undertake a synthesis of relevant literature
• Explain the research method
• Present the results with regard to interpretation of the various stories
• Explain the findings
• Draw conclusions and make recommends regarding further research
• Add the references

The proposed document as bulleted above may then be edited and submitted for publication. The researcher/s may even extract a paper to present at a conference.

Atkinson, R. (Robert) 1998. The life story interview. [Qualitative research methods Series No 44] Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Life stories for learning

A life-story is in essence the expression of a person's self-understanding—"there is no stronger, clearer statement of how the person sees and understands his or her own life than his or her narrative of it" (Atkinson 1998:65)—it promotes personal insight. From the personal, subjective and experiential emerge meaning. Life stories convey the wisdom of lived experiences.

Atkinson, R. (Robert) 1998. The life story interview. [Qualitative research methods Series No 44] Thousand Oaks: SAGE