2.6 Reflective Practices
2.6.4 Four stages of Learning from Experience Through Reflection
Daudelin (1996) provided a simplified reflective practice process that allows people to take responsibility for their learning through four stages of reflection to answer three questions regarding the need to understand (i) the core processes of reflection, (ii) the most likely process that promotes learning, and (iii) the tools that can be used to use reflection for learning. The reflective process starts with articulating the problem, analysing the situation, proposing theoretical assumptions, and supporting the solution. The taking of action includes deciding not to take action or repeatedly apply the reflective process (Daudelin, 1996).
76 Daudelin (1996) recommends posing questions as a technique to increase the learning power of reflection at each stage.
• Articulation
Articulation is the problem statement requiring reflection. Daudelin (1996) refers to Dewey’s state of doubt as a driving force for reflection. The relevant question for the articulation stage is what occurred?
• Analysis
Analysis is the act of looking for solutions that may resolve the doubt. The relevant question for the analysis stage is, why did it happen?
• Assumption
Assumption is the process of generating a hypothesis for overcoming doubt, which entails formulating a tentative theory and testing it. The relevant question for the assumption stage is how can things be done differently in the future?
• Action
Action ends the hypothesis and articulates a modified behaviour pattern that indicates that learning had taken place. Daudelin (1996) includes the decision to act as part of action if it leads to a change of behaviour. The relevant action stage question is what should be done now?
The process of reflection by Daudelin (1996) resembles the reflection of Mezirow (1990).
Following the definition of process by Neck and Greene (2011), processes have fixed steps, are linear and predictive compared to methods which are iterative bodies of skills and techniques that creatively use experimentation. Consequently, reflexive practice fits more with the definition of a method than a process.
The four questions of Daudelin (1996) resonate with a learning model proposed by Cronjé (2006), which has been extended over the past decade and a half (Cronjé, 2006, 2013, 2020).
The learning model depicted in Figure 2.9 is based on the model of Burrell and Morgan (1979), adapted by Cronjé (2006). On the horizontal axis, social science research ranges from objective to subjective, and along the vertical, the nature of society ranges from regulation (concrete) to radical change (abstract) (Cronjé (2011). Each quadrant indicates a paradigm
77 that varies according to the ontological understanding of society's nature and the nature of research.
Cronjé (2011, p. 3) describes each of the paradigms as follows:
• Radical humanist
Radical humanists are interested in the subjective world but feel the need to transcend or overthrow current societal arrangements. They aim to explore alternatives.
• Interpretive
Interpretivists believe that the world's human experience is subjective, and they are concerned about understanding it as it is. They aim to explain situations.
• Functionalist paradigm
Functionalists believe that the world is objectively discoverable and can be improved by
“tightening up” the rules. They aim to develop solutions.
• Radical structuralist
The radical structuralist view is based on an objective world view. They concentrate on structural relationships, believing that radical change is built into the very nature of society.
They aim to describe the position as it is.
Figure 2.9. Learning model based on Cronjé (2011).
Based on Roode (1993), Cronjé's (2020) learning model poses four questions on the perpendicular axis, which resonate with Daudelin (1996). On the abstract-concrete axis, the questions are what and why. On the subjective-objective axis, the questions of how and when
78 (or under what circumstances) are posed. The questions and stages from Daudelin (1996) show similarities to the questions and quadrants of Cronjé (2020), as shown in Table 2.6, which combines the four levels of reflection (Kember et al., 2008) with the four stages of reflection and four associated questions (Daudelin, 1996), four quadrants of learning, and the four associated questions (Cronjé, 2020).
Table 2.5. Learning model superimposed on levels of reflection and stages of reflection models.
Four Levels of Reflection Four Stages of Reflection
Four Questions Four Quadrants
Four Questions
(Kember et al., 2008) (Daudelin, 1996) (Cronjé, 2020)
Level 1. Non-Reflection as Habitual Action
Articulation What occurred? Describe What & When Level 2. Comprehension
(Understanding)
Analysis Why did it happen?
Explore What & How Level 3. Reflection Assumption
Hypothesis Generation / Tentative Theory to Explain
How do we do things differently?
Explain How & Why
Level 4. Critical Reflection Action What should we do now?
Develop Why & When
Cronjé (2016) recommends using the learning model for design science research, which has similarities to action research (Iivari & Venable, 2009). The approach provides two outputs – design output and research output. The design output flows from the develop quadrant and the research output from the explore quadrant. This resembles the 'profound yet powerful' simple questions of Daudelin (1996, p. 42), which ask 'what else' and 'why' much like the 'five why' (Serrat, 2017). When asking “what else” (i.e. Cronjé’s what and how) calls for reflective practice.
The primary source of criticism of the Burrell and Morgan (1979) model is the inherent limitation of incommensurability (Cronjé, 2011; van Zyl, 2015). To overcome this, Roode (1993) suggested the use of a sequential reflection of each quadrant. Reflecting on each paradigm allows researchers to identify a specific aim and guide students to formulate focused research questions (Cronjé, 2011). The combination of the prescriptive nature of Burrell and Morgan’s model, “the simplistic one-dimensional approach” of Roode (van Zyl, 2015, p. 11) and lack of self-reflexivity in students has brought further criticism to the model (van Zyl, 2015). Van Zyl (2015) suggests that these issues have led to the over-simplification
79 of research approaches. The result is that students unthinkingly accept the status quo, thus remaining 'inexperienced, ill resourced, and underprepared' (van Zyl, 2015, p. 9). This leads to the potential that staff, who were poorly prepared as students, will be ill-prepared to effectively educate students (van Zyl, 2015). To better prepare students, van Zyl (2015) recommends self-reflexivity, introspection, and autonomy. The intention is for students to pragmatically investigate all alternatives in their research and not rely solely on a single paradigm (van Zyl, 2015).
Hence, this raises the question of what form of reflection or self-reflexivity is suitable in each quadrant.
2.6.5 Action as Theoretical Underpinning of Experiential Learning and Reflexive Practice