Our Co-Operative Inquiry Group

OUR CO-OPERATIVE INQUIRY GROUP (CIG)

OR AM I STILL A POSITIVIST?

Peter Sutherland

Department of Education,

University of Stirling

Paper presented at the Scottish Educational Research Association Annual Conference (September 18-20: West Park Conference Centre, Dundee)

ABSTRACT 18 months ago a co-operative inquiry group was set up in our department on similar lines to Reason’s pioneering group at Bath University. The author gives his personal perception of how it felt to be a member of the Stirling group and compares its characteristics with those of Reason’s. The similarities between the 2 groups outnumber the differences. Our continued existence is itself a measure of our success.

INTRODUCTION

I am reporting this as a personal story e.g. my perceptions of belonging to this interesting experiment in group participation, hereafter referred to as our “cig”. I am not claiming to represent a consensus view of the group, only my own.

How It Started

Some research students wished a more interactive form for the research methods course. They met with the lecturer who had been given this responsibility and the head of department. The former requested a more interactive form of research methods teaching than the traditional one. Between them they started the cig, based on the model of Reason (1994). Any full-time PhD student and any academic member of the department was invited to participate.

The Format

At any meeting a suggestion would be made of a paper to discuss at the next meeting. If there was agreement, that person would circulate photocopies of the paper in advance. At the beginning of the session she or he would talk for a few minutes to the paper. Then there would be a free discussion - which could last 2 hours or more - until people had to leave. The meetings are held at lunch-time on a Wednesday. The afternoon is not timetabled for teaching, but for meetings; so unfortunately members such as the research professor often have to leave early.

MY PERCEPTIONS OF THE GROUP

I joined the group early on, but I was not present at the setting up of the group.

By the end of our first academic year - at the time of the SERA conference - it consisted of 3 PhD research students, 4 unpromoted lecturers and a research fellow.

The dominant explicit norm from its establishment was EQUALITY. However the participation was not equal: one of the research students, a male primary teacher (Jo) tended to be dominant. Another of the research students, also a primary teacher said very little during the earlier sessions, but said more towards the end.

Nevertheless I continued to find it a stimulating experience, both intellectually (despite being the only positivist amongst qualitative researchers) and socially.

At my first meeting a fellow positivist was present, a computer educationist from a natural science background. As he walked out from the other side of the room in the middle of the meeting, his attendance was short-lived. This left me as the only positivist in the group. I offered a paper from a positivist perspective, but this was not taken up by the PhD students. However unlike the other positivist I have moved towards a position of compromise methodologically: I am appreciative of what qualitative researchers have to offer, even if this is not reciprocated. I have continued to participate and enjoy the meetings. There is scope for a marginal person, if s/he shows willing.

Members keep in touch with each other by email. The latest idea is that some of the intellectual interaction should take place via email. This has not yet really happened to any great extent.

Since the 1997 SERA conference a new professor and a new PhD student have joined us as regular members. As the new professor was appointed with a particular remit to lead research, he would in a non-Reason scenario be our academic leader. However he has commented on how he likes the lack of leadership in the group.

Officially our department is becoming part of a broader Institute of Education. This has changed the atmosphere very slightly as colleagues from Educational Policy and Development join us from time to time.

Some of the Problems Faced by the Group

1.What are our goals? To provide a research methodology course and to add another strand to the departmental research culture. Any others?

2.We have suffered from a failure to resolve tissues and problems presented by the papers.

3. Should our activities be more structured? If they do, can we avoid becoming just another formal group?

1. How can all our members participate in the discussions to the extent that everyone feels satisfied?

2. How can we organise ourselves: when to meet and what to do?

3. How can we decide when and in what way to finish the session i.e. the nature of the closure?

4. If leadership is one of the essential elements of a group and yet our group was set up on a basis of equality, how can the various roles e.g. chair, secretary and discussant be decided?

5. Without a chair, how can we decide who should speak and for how long?

Some of the Solutions

Although our dominant founding ethos had been against any structure, Maya liked structure. However Jo was strongly against it, regarding it as a heresy against Reason as well as being unnatural to his own personality. We continue to waver between the two extremes.

The role of chairperson has been taken on by the group as a whole. As we normally consist of about 7 or 8 people, we tend to function like a successful family or working team, quickly reaching a consensus on these matters without any need for a formal leader. Since Fiona, one of the PhD students, offered to act as our unofficial secretary, things have gone more smoothly. She emails us with proposed dates and we reply to her/the group. The role of discussant has initially taken in turns. However we have dispensed with it as it did not seem to be working out satisfactorily.

The solution to the problem of who is to talk and for how long is decided informally by turntaking - in a way similar to a group of friends meeting. The more dominant, extravert personalities tend to speak first and at length. However they are sensitive both of their own loquaciousness and the needs of others. When such a person stops talking, this is the cue for a more submissive intravert personality to speak. I am not aware of the student-staff dichotomy affecting our discussions despite 2 of the staff being supervisors of 2 of the students. However Jo has commented on being aware of the presence of his supervisor.

Recently one of the students commented that she and others had felt that the previous session had been at a an intellectual level which they were not able to appreciate. They had not liked to show their ignorance by asking questions. Since then we have tried to have a norm of anyone (staff or student) being able to ask for an explanation of a point or clarification of a theory without any feeling of shame.

Closure is usually decided by when people have to leave. When there is no longer a viable group, we stop.

The research fellow, myself and one of the other lecturers have taken it upon ourselves to try to lead the more inhibited PhD students into the discussion; hence sharing what Bales (1950) called the social-emotional (as opposed to the task-oriented) aspect of leadership .

REASON’S BATH GROUP

Reason refers to the cig as an example of the new paradigm for doing educational research. His rationale is based on the notion of critical objectivity and commitment:

Who was that research

I saw you with last night?

That was no research,

That was my life.

The following points were presented at the conference, based on Reason’s (1994) paper which Jo had introduced us to at one of our first meetings.

According to Reason, co-operative inquiry is a form of

• education
• personal development
• social action.

The following aspects of Reason’s group seem worth considering:

Membership

It consisted at the time of writing of 3 members of staff and their research students.

It is:

• part support group.
• part intellectual seminar.
• part research laboratory.
• part encounter group.

Some who have left the department (with or without PhD’s) are still members of the group.

Activities

• discussing various pieces of literature, based on prior reading.
• exploring and criticising each other’s writing and ideas.

Ethos

• collaborative learning.
• the presenter is supported, yet challenged.
• not being over structured.
• characteristically female rather than male.
• chaotic rather than orderly.

Tries to be open to:

rivalry/competition

and

friendship/love

simultaneously.

A COMPARISON OF OUR GROUP AND REASON’S

Nature of the Group

As withReason’s group we are partly an intellectual seminar and partly a research laboratory. Perhaps there has been an element of being an encounter group, but this has not been explicitly acknowledged. Up to the arrival of the new professor we had not seen participating in the group as aiding personal development on Rogerian lines.

Recently our webpage, constructed by Fiona, saw allowing “space for more personal needs” and being “supportive” as 2 of our current aims. So she sees us now as being more supportive and more concerned with personal needs.

Activities

These have been identical to those of Reason:

• discussing both others’ papers and our own ideas
• and agonising over the nature of our group and where it should be going.

Ethos

Ours has become much closer to Reason’s since the new professor arrived in that there is a stronger element of support. However we have not yet faced up to the ambiguity which Reason sees as very likely to occur: of friendship clashing with rivalry and competition.

CONCLUSIONS

We are an ongoing group and are evolving continuously so any conclusions have to be formative rather than summative. However we have managed to find ways around the problems of organising ourselves without having a formal structure. We have survived so we must be satisfying our members‘ needs I hope Reason would approve!

REFERENCES

Bales, R.F. (1950) Interaction Process Analysis: A method of the Study of Small Groups. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley.

Reason, P. (1994) “Introduction” and “The co-operative Inquiry Group” in Reason, P. (ed.) Participation in Human Inquiry. London: Sage.