The Whale Draft Review

Last Friday I turned in my draft of the Lit Review for my dissertation. I have christened it the Whale draft. Since my Proposal was essentially my Chapter 1 of the dissertation, I put it together with my lit review. The monster came in at roughly 59,000 words and 138 pages single spaced (not including the Works Cited which I didn't do for this draft). Whale draft indeed.

As I turn now to focus on finishing my research, I want to do some thinking about what I have gained from this review. My thinking is fairly scattered, so to give it shape I will coalesce "things" or "take aways" or insights gained.

1. I think I see more clearly the two flavors of reflection that I have titled rhetorical reflection and curricular reflection. The key distinguishing factor seems to be WHEN the reflection is done, and that timing to a large degree is dictated by WHY the reflection is done. I see how much in education we have been dominated by post-task reflection. These approaches seem rooted oddly enough in thinking coming out of Experiential learning (i.e. Boud et al.). It could be that Boud is representative of this trend toward using reflection to process past experiences rather than generative in his own right. The Deweyian approach toward reflection that begins with a puzzle or problem and seeks in an on-going and present sense to solve the problem is neglected.

So my lit review has given me a broad basis for saying my own subject of research is one that is needed more attention. I think I established this "gap" in my elaboration of rhet/comp's "portfolio-centric" view of reflection. I don't know if that term works, but I have sure fallen into using it.

2. Another gain from this lit review is a much deeper sense of what I refer to as the "Open Question" about reflection. I have established fairly well what I call the "value-added assumption" about reflection. (This term is another one I coined and I hope makes sense). We impute certain values and outcomes to reflection; however, these don't always happen. So the discrepancy between our theories about reflection and what we really know about it constitutes the second gap which my research seeks to enter or justify itself based upon. This discrepancy is at the heart of the Open Question. Because reflection does not appear to fulfill its promise "enough," we have questions about whether and how we should use it.

3. Depth. I can say that this lit review has provided me with substantial depth for my eventual lit review. I seems likely that the actual lit review will emerge from my "Story of reflection in composition/rhetoric"and that in appropriate places I will infuse background information from Boud, Mezirow, Moon, and Schon. I won't have to have separate sections on these theorists (I think), but I will be able to discuss them in reference to writing and reflection. I now have a much firmer understanding and grounding in these different theorists/scholars work on reflection, so I can summarize their work with more confidence.

4. The work of King and Kitchener looms large in my thinking. I found enough evidence in other research in composition confirming their developmental theories that I feel as if I had an article I could put together just on this coalescence. Maybe, just maybe the problems surrounding student reflections might be caused by the fact that collect students are in a pre-reflective or quasi-reflective stage of cognitive development. They are not ready to engage in reflective thinking! What does this mean for my research? What sort of thinking can we expect students to engage in within writer's reviews? I will have to keep my eyes open but try as best as I can not to let their theories prejudice my observations.

5. I believe that I have found much evidence for "it depends" and "what it depends on" in relation to reflection. Whether students engage in what we might call productive reflection (where our assumptions about the value-added benefits of reflection are realized or nearly realized) depends upon a number of factors. Schon's four factors, as well as factors related to task representation, knowledge, and cognitive development, and then even the support offered by the learning context for reflection, all appear to be significant "dependent" factors or causal variables. Can we say one stands out among the others? Will the level of cognitive development trump all the others?

6. The literature review process has provided pretty good fodder to justify my methodology of grounded theory. This justification comes from two sources. Since we have accepted assumptions and focused on developing the habit of reflection, we have not asked enough exactly what is going on and how it works. We have not dug into its actual mechanics (I don't like that term). Grounded theory digs into the mechanics. Also, we have nearly always used other theories to make sense of reflections (like Anson using Halliday) rather than see what sort of sense these reflections make on their own. This justification for another approach to researching reflection is in a way experimental in that others have not done it before (rather than testing anything other than perhaps the methodology of grounded theory). I feel that my methodological argument is suspect to a degree, but I think I can present it as it is with its own limitations. I have a feeling that the most powerful aspect of my dissertation may be in how it links to other theories/theorists in reflection. Maybe. I don't know.

7. This lit review really got cut off. Since I received my "get to it" message from Fred and Rich, I have tried to bring the lit review to a more rapid close. Where did I not go in as depth as I wanted to? I really wanted to spend more time on the cognitivists, especially Flower's work (and her collaborative work with many others). I also felt like I could have done a lot more with Beireter and Scarmadalia. I was not able to do the thorough review on their work like I had done for Boud, Schon, and King and Kitchener. This gap may come back to bite me later on. We shall see. Still, I did put together what I felt was references to key ideas expressed by the cognitivists.

8. I'm left with lots of article ideas in my head. Here are just a few:
--I ended up gravitating toward graphical representations more and more in the lit review. I have enough models or graphics depicting different models of reflection, I thought I could do a whole article looking at these models. A collection of graphics on reflection.
--I think I could do an article on confirmations of K&K's theories inside composition research. These would almost be like circumstantial evidence confirming the work of King and Kitchener
--An article critiquing the portfolio-centric perspective on reflection that we maintain. This persists with the focus on transfer.
--I'd love to do a retrospective article reviewing the work of Flower and the National Center on Research in Writing. Their research articles are quite amazing.
--I also felt that more could be done related to Schon's four constants of reflection, particularly his notion of "appreciative systems." I think the four constants could be quite productive lenses for pursuing research.

For the time being, this literature review will lie low. I can't put it completely out of my head, but as I turn once again to data analysis, I must be conscious of looking at the data upon its own merits and understanding it for what it is first. I can't ignore this theory, and eventually it will provide rich substance for interpretation, but I must not let it predetermine or bias what I am looking for or what I think I am seeing (as much as that is possible).

Launching the next phase--Lit Review Part II

I'm ramping up to dig into the second half of my lit review. I certainly hope it doesn't take as long as part I. I have this feeling that I need to charge through this draft because it is a draft. Also, I need to move more quickly because what will end up going into my actual dissertation will be considerably different and shorter. The style of writing will be different. Right now I am writing in depth summaries and considerations of key points. That's OK. But it isn't the synthetic narrative of the dissertation. If my draft one ends up at 50K or 70K words, my actual lit review in the diss will end up being 12.5 K (50 pages double-spaced). Even if I stretch it to 100 pages, the lit review would be only 25K. I will have a lot of conversion to do; however, I am finding this detailed review of the research and literature enormously helpful in expanding my understanding.

As I dive into this next phase, I am pulling together my sources. It is nice to be focusing on writing! I've started by looking at my summaries of research on rhetorical reflection. Now it the time I can build on previous work--thank goodness. I also have a notebook (actually notebooks) with all the various articles. I need to find my close summary notes on Yancey's book. They are in my box somewhere.

I have a few thoughts right now as I look at the lit on reflection research. First, there is a lot of good material. Many studies are weak in rigor, and I've thought about developing some kind of star system for rating research. I have a number of one star studies, but I have what I have.

Some impressions--
A number of studies point to ability and proficiency with reflection leads to improvement of some kind or correlates with superior ability. Sumsion has probably the most interesting things to say because she is critical of reflection. Her study doubts reflection can be quantitatively measured. It isn't suited for that kind of evaluation. She also noticed that students can be reflective and yet still not academically able. I have certainly seen that with a noticeable number of students. They can write a beautiful reflection in their final portfolio reflection, but their actual writing performance does not match the sophistication of their reflective awareness.

I see lots of influence from Flavell and his notion of metacognition. I struggle in my own mind to pin down a definition of metacognition, or rather I struggle matching exact forms or expressions of thinking with what is "metacognitive." How do I distinguish these forms of thinking we might label as "metacognitive" from those we should label "reflective?" Should I distinguish them, or can I lump them together? Flavell asserted that metacognition could be learned, that it would improve based upon training. Some research has tried to validate that assertion, and there is a group of findings that characterize reflection in the same way--that reflection is a learned behavior/skill. I might mention that this school of thinking counters the findings of King and Kitchener who believe reflective thinking is developmental.

I also see two different views of reflection. One view is based from Dewey and it presents reflective thinking in qualified terms. Reflection is triggered from a problem, exists within an ill-structured situation, and is inquiry based upon seeking a solution to the problem. David Boud offers another school of thinking about reflection that has a broader definition. In this sense, reflection is a form of thoughtful processing of experience with the goal of gaining better understanding that it is assumed leads to improved practice. Boud has a general practice orientation. I don't think these definitions or perspectives need to be exclusive of each other. Boud's allows for what McAlpine saw which is that practitioners engaged in reflection-in-action didn't always reflect around a problem, but they could also trigger significant reflection and resulting action around possibilities.

So much for the moment. I am presently gaining a perspective on the terrain of all this literature and scholarship. I'm gathering all my lego pieces. Once I have them together, I will chart out my game plan for writing and begin.