Putting Research Outcomes into Practice
Notes of the meeting held on October 12th 2007 at the Chancellors Conference Centre,
Manchester.
Those present
Aminder Nijar
Bill Law
Brian McIvor
David Stanbury
Gill Frigerio
Jane Artess
Karen Carter
Michael Clarke
Paul Dowson
Pauline McDonald
Peter Hawkins
Ruth Lawton
Val Butcher
Apologies
Allistair Work
Amanda Wood
Arti Kumar
Barbara Graham
Becka Currant
Claire Callender
Della Fazey
Graham Nicholson
Helen Colley
Jeff Goodman
Jenny Bimrose
Kate Purcell
Kent Roach
Lee Harvey
Loretta Jennings
Marc Lintern
Margaret Dane
Ros Healey
Sarah Ryan
Terry Dray
Valerie Metcalfe
Agenda
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Progress review
Creating a new model for career learning
Gaps, choices and underlying values
Turning resources into action: funding and communications
Progress review
Since the last meeting colleagues had provided a range of potential project ideas.
Some were extensions of work commenced following the December meeting at
Crewe (Paul J and Kate P, Ros H) - others were more recent. There remained a
consensus that what is required is:
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a unifying core project (CPI)
several smaller projects (see template)
use of a variety of models but to harness practitioners and researchers working
together (the 'Della model' providing a very good exemplar of this)
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Creating a new model for career learning - Content,
Processes and Influences (CPI)
Bill Law provided an extensive introduction to the CPI notion, enabling participants
to consider how it might be developed as a more up-to-date (than DOTS) device for
designing careers work in HE. This lengthy discussion is summarised as:Careers advisers need 3 brains: 1) for career development: finding out what is going
on, among the facts, factors and trends in how careers work. 2) for career
management: drawing out what people make of those events and pressures, in their
minds and in their actions. 3) for careers work: working out what we can best do to
help, in our programmes. How can one model capture all this? All any model can do
is provide a framework for what to do. Models are a collection of theories that bear
(in this case) upon career. Models can,
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expand the repertoire for action by providing a foundation for questions such
as (i) are we missing something here? (ii) does the model suggest something
we might do about it?
be used selectively - the CPI model is not a prescription - we need to ask, (i)
what do we need from it? (ii) how can it be used? (iii) how can it be
researched? (iv) what adjustments need to be made?
Coverage
The DOTS model was built upon the work of Super and Roberts and others but was
designed originally as a framework with which to research the provision of careers
education in six schools - as a way of mapping what was happening, rather than a
prescription for what could/should happen. It is not the only model but it is one that
has stood the test of time. DOTS concerns 'coverage' essentially, but where DOTS'
'decisions making' and 'opportunity awareness' is relate well to career decision making
- 'transition' and 'self awareness' are closer to the process of learning. The model
gives rise to questions such as, What gave you the idea of …? So what do you need
to know…? Tell me more about why …?
Processes
Processes were described as those components that enable learning. In careers work
these are:
- opportunities (includes information about opportunity)
- self and role (where the former includes developing awareness and the latter
could be framed in terms of ‘identity’ in narrative)
Further - role might be what the self becomes when s/he enters and opportunity. Role
is context specific – individuals occupy several roles simultaneously. Role might be
a better notion than ‘career management’ as it suggests complexity and shifts
according to personal circumstances. Big question: how much of our role is predefined?
Key discussion points about ‘coverage’
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it builds upon DOTS
getting enough coverage (information) is time-consuming
students expect the process to be simple – but its complex
need to move away from the formulaic into seeing careers work as catalytic
identity might be a better term than role (i.e. its already complex)
self is a problematic term (does it exist outside identities?)
practitioner has to be open to ideas otherwise the context forces reductionism
(i.e. 20 minute – or less – interviews)
if role and opportunities move to the centre of careers work – where does this
stop? Are careers practitioners in HE to become more like Connexions
advisers? = boundary issues
technological solutions appear to provide the best means of achieving
coverage but how do we provide tools to empower identities?
Distinction between coverage and process
Process has been described (by Law based on the work of Bruner, Vygotsky and other
learning theorists) as sensing, sifting, focussing and understanding. These are all
verbs. Career management is achieved by these processes the culmination of which is
understanding.
Sensing
Students need to know enough about opportunities to know that they could
have done things differently (otherwise there is no choice) – but the big issue
for practitioners is, how much do they need to know? What is enough? could
be a research question. If making a (career) choice is easy – it may be that the
student is being impulsive – unless this is accompanied by (more learning
verbs) asking, visiting, looking, listening. This was not part of DOTS.
Sifting
This involves sorting into ones own order – derives much from the work of
Savickas (personal construct theory) and notions of mind-mapping. It
involves organisation into (self) constructed categories; it involves the
construction of ones own map, and is presumed to be undertaken when no
more new information is being sensed. Web 2.0, co-learning, wikkis are
examples of how individuals sift information.
Focussing
Once a map (or maps) is created, other life goals (stories or dreams) are
brought to bear. The work of Krumbolz is important here = students build
generalisations and skills, often on the basis of the comments of peers or
partners. Narrative theorists look for recurrent themes. The work of Steven
Pinker (How the Mind Works) was mentioned here and the comment made
that there is not enough research about the place of ‘intuition’ in focussing on
career goals.
Understanding
Looking for an explanation on cause and effect. Understanding provides a
basis for an examination in retrospect; this can be used to feed-forward to
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prospective events. A big part of understanding involves recall.
Remembering may be i) semantic, (someone told me), ii) procedural (skills
embedded without thinking) or iii) episodic (had an impact) – memories are
the most powerful when combined with emotional events. However the
curriculum tends to be mostly semantic and procedural (eg information and
how to use it) and under-emphasises the events most likely to be remembered
(i.e. the ones that involve an emotional response).
There needs to be a focus in order to understand; without focus, there is often
just too much information to take in. In this sense, focussing is a procedure of
understanding. Equally if organisation takes place with inadequate amounts of
information then the result can be stereotyping (e.g. people like me don’t do
that kind of job) which is often underpinned by (unexpressed) values and is
self-fulfilling.
For further detail please see
http://www.hihohiho.com/magazine/mkngtwork/cafprgrssn.pdf
However, most information is not impartial – its economic – we need to teach
students how to seek out and interpret their own information.
The sensing, sifting, focussing and understanding process is cyclical –
understanding provides for more sensing and so it goes on. The place of the
practitioner is to assist this process – to clarify and to help students to progress
creatively. Co-learning (with peers, or practitioners) might be relevant here
too. Three components of knowledge: i) public knowledge (what is already
known), ii) personal knowledge (that deriving from own and others’ practice)
and iii) new knowledge (that which is derived from the interaction of i) and ii)
and is sometimes referred to as ‘powerful practice’.
Practice - research issues
How to capture (career) learning? How to capture knowledge? An example from the
work of the NCSL – appreciative enquiry - was provided. Here the practitioner
(teachers in this case) are asked to identity their ‘dream question’ (what s/he really
wants to know more about) which becomes a ‘design question’ followed by a
‘delivery question’ and ultimately in the group/school setting a ‘systems question’.
Influences
All students are influenced in their career learning by events within and beyond the
curriculum – identifying those incidences (or flashpoints) can be a basis for action.
Influences can be from ‘attachments’ (to individuals) or ‘allegiances’ (to groups).
Discussion here centred upon ways of helping students to understand their network of
influences and Brian (McIvor) expressed an interest to explore whether the three
dimensional nature of this can be captured electronically.
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Culture is an important influencer. It was thought likely that culture can be changed
by exposure to difference (people, events, beliefs) and noted that the practitioners’
culture is an important influence/counter influence.
Mention was made of the five goals of Every Child Matters – and there was some
consensus that these broad objectives might also form a sound basis for work with
students/graduates. Bill emphasises that CPI is a model of well-being; employability
is a means to that but not the only component of it.
Turning resources into action
1. The practical implications of Bill’s presentation were discussed. The following
individuals agreed to take components forward by working collaboratively each other
and with Bill:
NB some of these ideas have now been incorporated into practitioner research
proposals (Nov 2007).
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Michael Clarke – to look at sensing/sifting and investigate how this maps on to now
students navigate the web.
Ruth Lawton – to run a workshop with staff on how to use CPI approach.
Jane Artess – to work on providing examples.
Gill Frigerio – to devise a case study to test out these ideas in a curriculum setting.
Val Butcher – to keep a watching brief and to act as ‘critical friend’
Ruth Lawton – to use the VLE to promote work there
Brian McIvor – to work on the visuals/graphics
David Stanbury – is interested to work on ‘hindsight bias’ and how students justify
past actions
Aminder Nijar – how careers advisory services measure their own
effectiveness/success.
Karen Carter – would provide examples of/template to generate narrative accounts; a
model for organising the materials.
Peter Hawkins – to use CPI as a template to audit Windmills.
Bill Law – to aim to simplify the CPI model as a 3 x 3 x 3
2. Project proposals received were voted for and proposals ranked in order of
immediate importance. Jane agreed to contact all the proposers to discuss their plans.
Date of the next meeting
Was agreed as January 31st /1st February 2008.
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Selected references
Boseley, S., Arnold, J and Cohen, L., (2007) 'The anatomy of credibility: a conceptual
framework of valued career helper attributes' Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 70 (1),
116 - 134 (001 - 8791)
Bruner
Law, B (l996) in Watts A G et al (1997) Rethinking Careers Education and
Guidance: theory, policy and practice, London, Routledge.
Kruboltz
Pinker, S (1999) How the Mind Works, London, Penguin.
Savickas
Vygotski
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