http://www.critical.soton.ac.uk /
Symposium at BERA Conference, Manchester, September 2004:
‘The Development of Criticality among Undergraduates: The Role of Work Placements and Residence Abroad’
Paper 1
Description of the “Criticality” project and its theoretical base
Christopher Brumfit, Brenda Johnston, Rosamond Mitchell, Peter Ford and Florence Myles
University of Southampton
WORKING DRAFT (NOT TO BE QUOTED WITHOUT PERMISSION)
Abstract
This paper provides a background description of the criticality project (aims, methodology, available data) in order to contextualise the later papers. It also proposes a theoretical framework for understanding the contents of the presentations, taking as a starting point a theoretical framework suggested by Ron Barnett (1997) which focuses on the development of criticality as a central aim of higher education. He suggests that criticality should be understood over a range of domains (reason, self and the world), rather than just the domain of reason and formal knowledge and suggests that it takes place over a number of levels, ranging from lower instrumental to higher transformative levels. The resources needed in order to function critically (e.g. Bailin et al. 1999) are also considered in relation to knowledge, behaviour and personal qualities. Models deriving from the project are outlined for (1) the curriculum to which students are exposed, (2) the stages of activity shown in their performance (pre-criticality, criticality with others’ agenda, criticality and world knowledge with their own agenda) - though these are not discrete developmental stages, and (3) a definition of successful criticality in action. A programme of further necessary research is outlined.
Preface
This BERA 2004 Symposium arises from a research project funded by ESRC from 2002-4 at the University of Southampton, and titled “Development of Criticality among Undergraduates in Two Academic Disciplines” [ESRC Award no R000239657]. The project was carried out by an interdisciplinary team including: Brenda Johnston, School of Education; Ros Mitchell, Schools of Education/ Humanities; Peter Ford, School of Social Sciences; Florence Myles, School of Humanities (project co-directors), and Christopher Brumfit, Schools of Education/ Humanities (project consultant). Project administrators were Eleanor Lutman and Susan Lees. The research team is grateful to the ESRC for funding this project, to colleagues in the School of Education and elsewhere in the University of Southampton, and above all to the students, administrators and teaching staff of the ‘University of Westford’ who allowed us generous access to their time, documentation, and classes. We are also grateful for the critical support of many colleagues to whom we have presented tentative findings in a number of academic and professional seminars.
Background
‘Criticality’ has long been a recognised aim of higher education (e.g. Newman 1899/1996), but the processes by which criticality develops in undergraduates and indeed the nature of the concept in the contemporary university have been relatively little discussed. While aspects of the concept have been much discussed through the literature on critical thinking, through the work of the Frankfurt School and its successors, and through some recent discussion on the changing role of the university, practical implications of such discussion have received little empirical investigation.
The term ‘criticality’ has multiple meanings, amidst different political, policy, epistemological, and pedagogic agendas. Discussion about criticality has existed uneasily within a debate about the purposes of higher education (for example, how does it relate to the university’s role as provider of specific skills directly usable in employment, or as developer of general intellectual skills which can be used later in different contexts, or as the source of an environment in which personal and cultural development can take place?). Despite some careful analyses of aspects of the critical process, or of the goals of critical education (e.g. Barnett’s 1997 theorisation of criticality; Bailin et al.’s 1999 theorisation of resources needed for critical thinking to take place), research has not generally combined appropriate and robust theory with a sound empirical base.
Yet terms like ‘critical’ recur in specifications of the goals of undergraduate teaching for contemporary UK universities. For example, ‘Sociology is a reflexive discipline that aims to develop a critical awareness of the social world’ (Sociology benchmark statement, QAA 2000a: 3); ‘a critical understanding of most of the topics that they have studied’ (Social Policy and Administration and Social Work, QAA 2000b: 8); ‘reflect critically’ (on oneself or one’s own performance) (QAA 2000b: 12, 18, 19); ‘demonstrate a reasoned awareness and critical understanding’ Languages and Related Studies, QAA 2002: 13). Even where the term is not used so much, for example in applied sciences, aspects of what other disciplines explicitly call ‘critical’ are listed. Architectural Technology (QAA 2000c: 14) for example lists among ‘cognitive abilities’:
· ability to develop creative and innovative solutions
· awareness of the provisional nature of knowledge
· ability to make informed judgements based on evidence
· able to question current theories and practice
· ability to recognise and analyse novel problems and plan strategies for their solution.
So it seems a good moment to map the processes by which universities attempt to develop criticality, to relate these to the claimed needs of employers and others, and to the main theoretical positions already articulated by commentators.
Thus, given the increasingly explicit commitment in public policy to the development of skills and capacities relevant to criticality (e.g. the National Qualifications Framework and the benchmarking statements produced by QAA in the early 2000s) in the wake of an unprecedented expansion of higher education and its incorporation into mainstream society (Barnett 1994; Scott 1995), we perceived an urgent need to illuminate the processes of criticality development more fully, through both theoretical conceptualisation and empirical investigation, with a view both to informing developments in curriculum and pedagogy, and to understanding more fully how the concept can be articulated for 21st century needs and values.
Project Objectives
The stated project aims were to provide:
(1) an integrated theoretical interdisciplinary framework for understanding the teaching and learning of criticality;
(2) rich empirical descriptions, related to the theorisation provided in (1), of the development of criticality, in place of current speculation;
(3) clarification of current epistemological and curricular confusion about the teaching and learning of criticality;
(4) discussion of how the reality on the ground relates to the world of policy initiatives; and
(5) a foundation for future work on:
(a) the transfer of criticality to other disciplines and life situations and;
(b) more effective teaching and learning of criticality at undergraduate level.
Research methods: Overall research strategy
In order to achieve our overall aim of theorising the teaching and learning of criticality in contemporary higher education, it was appropriate to work on a number of different fronts, both conceptual and empirical. Funding constraints limited us to two contrasting disciplines initially, and in the event we worked with one social science-based professional undergraduate degree (Social Work), and one humanities based one (Modern Languages). Our aim in the long-term was to contrast types of discipline, institution and student, in order to develop as rich as possible a picture of criticality in the making, but initially we had to be content with these two contrasting fields. To develop our understanding of contemporary debates and conceptualisations of criticality we also undertook an extensive literature review, and mounted a seminar series to which a number of key theorists of the HE curriculum were invited as speakers. In addition, we gathered and analysed a range of current policy documents to investigate their proposals and claims regarding criticality (e.g. benchmark statements for a range of Higher Education disciplines).
But to achieve our initial aim of developing tentative empirically based conceptualisations of criticality and its place in HE learning and teaching, our main efforts were invested in ethnographic studies of the two university departments in a Russell Group university. Two discipline-based members of the research team acted as ‘gatekeepers’ and facilitators, assisting in negotiation of access to a wide range of departmental documentation and departmental activities including different types of class, student tutorials, and staff meetings. At the heart of these studies were a series of case studies of students drawn from Years 1, 2 and 4 in each discipline (3 per year for each discipline). The intention was that individual student participants should be interviewed repeatedly regarding aspects of their programme, including their perceptions of different types of classes they attended, their learning strategies outside class, and production of a variety of written outputs (essays, projects, language exercises, etc).
In addition to the student case studies (a prime source for evidence about the learning of criticality), we attended a selection of all types of classes in both departments (with priority going to classes in which the case study students were enrolled). These observations were complemented with lecturer interviews and the collection of related curriculum documentation, as a foundation for the study of the place of criticality in the curriculum and lecturers’ intentions and practices in teaching criticality.
In both Modern Languages and Social Work Studies, the undergraduate programme at the target university was 4 years long, with Year 3 devoted to residence abroad in one case (Modern Languages) and to a substantial period of fieldwork practice in the other (Social Work Studies). Project resources did not allow for direct participant observation of these significant learning experiences. However, we gathered indirect evidence about them both through interviews with students and staff, and through collection and analysis of written products arising from them.
Research methods: Data collection
Data collected focused on both formal and informal learning, and on group interactions as well as individual case studies, in order to capture the range of the undergraduate experience of criticality. The aim was to collect multiple sources of data relevant to the teaching and learning of criticality, in order to increase the power of the conclusions. We have attempted to analyse ongoing processes of construction of criticality, both collaboratively in class/group settings, and individually through written assignments of different kinds.
The data collection was carried through fully and successfully. The detailed procedures used and resulting data collected consisted of the following:
a) Regular observation and recording of group/individual teaching/learning interactions (e.g. seminars, lectures, individual tutorials), over the course of one semester in each discipline, in order to document longitudinal sequences of interactions. We tracked two courses of study in each of three years of study in both Modern Languages and Social Work Studies (12 courses in all), as well as a selection of language classes and a small number of Social Work placement interactions. Sessions were audio-recorded digitally where feasible and the sessions transcribed selectively (80 in all). In addition, observation notes from a selection of classes were typed up (98 in all).
b) scrutiny of draft/interim written/spoken case study student products and final written/spoken products in order to investigate the process through which students arrived at their final course products (produced for assessment and otherwise) and the nature of the final products themselves. The range of student products actually collected for analysis was very diverse; for each case study student, from 2-4 major documents were collected.
c) digitally audiorecorded interviews with students, course teachers, department heads and administrators as appropriate in order to probe:
(i) what students think they have learned,
(ii) what teachers think they have taught and that students have learned
(iii) what institutional representatives aim to achieve.
The student interviews offered opportunities for discussion of learning which occurs in and out of class, on different kinds of placement, and also informally, as research suggests this may be a significant part of the student learning experience at university. Students’ written products were used as an important stimulus for discussion, as were the classes and other learning events attended by the fieldworker.
We tracked 9 case study students per department, 3 in each year of study, in order to build up a cross-sectional picture of the development of criticality. They were varied in terms of age, educational qualifications, gender and social background. (In each department, one case study student dropped out of our study because of problems unconnected with our study and we recruited substitute students.) We interviewed each student several times during the course of the semester that their department was being investigated and had a follow up interview at the end of the year for students tracked in the first semester. In all, a total of 45 student interviews were conducted in one department and 55 in the other.
We interviewed eighteen staff members formally, and where possible, supplementary data/background information was also gathered on an ad hoc basis from informal encounters with both staff and students.
d) collection and analysis of relevant policy and course documents. We photocopied, collected or downloaded relevant texts.
We also observed two Social Work students and their practice teachers in a placement supervision session at the placement site, and two Modern Languages students as they went through their dissertation supervision sessions in their final year.
Research methods: Data analysis
The analysis has been conducted qualitatively using ethnographic-type techniques (Johnston 1998; Smagorinsky 1994) in combination with microanalysis of talk, reading, writing and thought as dynamic social and learning activities (see Vygotsky 1962, 1978; Bruner 1985) in order to enable the researchers to probe the details and quality of teaching/learning processes, as well as products. These analytical methods have given the researcher access to localised meanings of events, processes and changes (Miles and Huberman 1994). Transcripts of different types of interview, transcripts of classes, student academic products (written and spoken), and departmental/course documentation, have been at the heart of our empirical analysis. Most of the data were stored electronically (with some exceptions such as student written products), which promoted data sharing across the research team. Data analysis was supported by the software package NVivo, which provided a flexible means of coding different types of document and pursuing emergent themes across a large and diverse dataset.
By cross-relating the findings from each type of data, integrating these with the theoretical approaches outlined later and exploring the wider higher educational context, it has been possible to illuminate the issues raised by the research questions. We have focused particularly on (1) the relationship of our data to the Barnett framework, modifying and extending this as appropriate and (2) evolving our own developmental and curricular frameworks. This has been (and remains) an iterative process where we have moved backwards and forwards between theory and data. We have examined the expressed priorities of students, teachers, and departmental and institutional officials in relation to their actions as well as to underlying agendas and contextual realities. In all cases specific detailed exemplification and illustration has been sought.