Research and past experience

D Clandinin and F Connelly, in Personal Experience Methods in the 1994 Denzin and Lincoln Handbook of qualitative research (413-427) note: 'Experience... is the stories people live. People live stories, and in the telling of them reaffirm them, and create new ones' (415). Life history has thus become a widespread method of research of various professions. Some base generalisations on a substantial number of life history interviews (for example Goodson and Sikes, Life history research in educational settings, 2001). Researchers also look back into their own life histories in a variety of ways, reflecting perhaps on their careers, or on a particular piece of research they have completed, such as for Masters or a doctorate. There are issues of accuracy and authenticity in this: humans are capable of lying both to others and to themselves, and on other occasions do not reflect with full understanding. So the quality of looking back (retrospection), or reflecting on past experience has to be taken seriously. From a methodological point of view, reflection on a period of research, such as to a doctorate, can be helped by having a written record of one's thoughts from beginning to end. The research diary is the traditional means of achieving this, modelled on the fieldnotes used in anthropology, but being sure to note down feelings, attitudes, beliefs and suchlike as well as 'facts'. The strictures of John van Maanen, Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, are helpful here, that fieldnotes are not definitive but have been affected by processes of selection, interpretations and partial observation, and maybe by the unrepresentative use of informants (interviewees). Research diaries therefore consist of material to be critiqued, and should not be supercialially accepted. Two of my students were helped by arranging to be interviewed at the beginning of research by an experienced practitioner briefed to be probing. Critiquing that transcript reveals the journey travelled, which might otherwise have become blurred. Other students write their fieldnotes using blog technology, which has the advantage that supervisers can offer guidance frequently. If this becomes a daily habit, a researcher focusing on their own professionality reflects constantly on whatever happens, or whatever thoughts and issues they are wrestling with. I deal with this more fully in Bigger, S (2009) The Potential of Blogs in Higher Degree Supervision, in Worcester Journal of Learning and Teaching issue 1 (online, full text here).

The substantive issue is how to interrogate our own past histories. In talking about reflection on action, Donald Schon (The Reflective Practioner, 1983; Educating the reflective practitioner, 1988) encourages reflection on comparatively recent history - a job that has just been completed for example. Why were certain decisions made, what conclusions have been drawn of success or failure. This encourages habits of evaluation in groups: self evaluation has some sort of control as it is tested by the views of colleagues. Once we attempt to be self-evaluative over a longer period, such dialogue with other participants becomes more difficult. Even straight-forward timelines become difficult as the years blur into each other.

We might even question the purpose of a timeline. To establish an actual factual record does not tell us much about quality. If I can be certain for example that I taught Cambridge Classical Background in 1978, it doesn't tell me whether I taught it well. Or what I might mean by 'well'. Max Van Manen distinguishes between technical rational information (stage 1), contextual reflection (stage 2) including attitudes, values and ethos, and dialectical reflectivity where quality and ethics are critiqued (Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical, Curriculum Inquiry 6(3), 1977, 205-228).

Max van Manen is a key proponent of the use of phenomenology in pedagogy and the curriculum. A phenomenon is something which is considered real but has no substance for observation. For example, Max van Manen completed early work on tact and tone in pedagogy, and more recent work on pupil privacy. There has to be a great deal of data collection and discussion about the meaning of such words, and the claim made that they are somehow real as opposed to constructed and conceptual. Quality is another such word. What people mean by quality is one level; what is real quality is a higher level. What we assume about the phenomenon (tact, tone, quality) is an interference which we have to put to one side (or bracket out). Many of these phenomena are things in everyday life we take for granted, which means we have not thought deeply about them, our assumptions and stereotypes satisfy us.

The beginnings of analysis of our past experience might be phenomena applicable to us. Whilst tone and tact (to pupils as well as to colleagues) might get us started on pedagogy, and quality might provide roots for views of good practice and self-evaluation, we probably need to construct a matrix of phenomena relevant to us. Respect, justice, community and so on. The case for an item being a phenomenon rather than a concept may have to be debated. What is wisdom? I think it is a concept, not a reality, a judgement that something is sensible rather than foolish. And what of God? I think also a concept, a picture of the highest good, and not an entity which is real. I am sure some readers disagree, but do be sure of your grounds.

I conclude this section by inviting you to look back at your life and career using such markers as tone, tact, respect, fairness, justice, equity, community. There will be aspects in which we feel we have been treated badly, others where we feel we have treated others badly, and still more where others are acting or being acted upon. From this step, observations and recommendations will come.


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