Gallant, M. & Wright, J. (2015)
Paper presentation at Lifelong Learning Conference, Warwick, 30.6.15
'Research? What do you mean, research?'
Introducing research (appraisal and practice) to non-traditional learners in a Foundation Degree
In recognising the increasing demand for professional practice to be based in the evidence of empirical (and predominantly positivistic) research whilst resisting the concomitant demands of qualification inflation we have struggled to find ways of introducing research appraisal, ethics and practice to the non-traditional learners entering our undergraduate degrees in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Whilst offering a course based on Freirean andragogy, contingency and idiographic principles of understanding and intervention, our students and ourselves inhabit a dominant narrative of absolutist truth and certainty enjoined by the expectation that we ‘teachers’ can ‘fill the jug of knowledge’. We offer a professionally accredited and academically validated university degree which necessarily treads the tightrope of conflicting demands of increasing content and limited time. As practitioners ourselves we do not believe that good counsellors are defined by good degrees: it is commonly possible to be an excellent counsellor without having great academic ability.
Ironically though, the practice of counselling therapy is not that far from the practice of qualitative research. In a very real sense, counsellors’ training enables them to facilitate their clients to tell the detailed and meaningful story of their lives; to bring to consciousness cognition, physiology and emotion. Indeed, counsellors could be seen as professional conversationalists and interviewers, and pre-skilled qualitative inquirers.
We might expect therefore that our students grasp the concept of qualitative inquiry whilst at the same time being immersed in the grand narrative of modernist quantitative and nomothetic ‘evidence’ that seeps into every nook and cranny of professional practice: surely they are well placed to understand the ins and outs of both quantitative and qualitative inquiry? The pertinent issues would therefore seem to be in facilitating them to discover their existing knowledge and enthusing them with a passion for practitioner research and its benefits for their clients and their profession.
Anecdotally there seemed to be some fear and confusion within students when faced with the reality of making these connections. Pitching the place of research in a level 4 and 5 programme inevitably seems to militate against the inclusion of work on epistemologies and ontologies alongside methodological explorations: is this possible? Could it be that the apparent (though practically non-existent) exclusivity of quantitative and qualitative methods cause confusion and resistance? What about performative methods?
The project that led to today’s presentation and discussion (see poster and additional handout - Gallant, M., Anthony, L., Date, C., Jefsioutine, M. & Paris, A. (2015) Poster presentation at BACP Research Conference, Nottingham, 15.5.15) aimed to explore our students’ attitudes to research, their experiences and their relationship with research; the word, the product, the process and the value of research evidence in Counselling and Psychotherapy. The research began with a cross-sectional view of all our year groups, and will continue as a longitudinal study over the next four years. It is hoped that this inquiry will inform the approach/ facilitative style of trainers and curriculum developers on this particular course and, possibly, other counselling courses with a similar mature student intake.
Incidentally, the choice of research method – a visual bricolage using externalising objects as elicitation – may provide clues as to novel approaches to research teaching in this context.