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Working Paper Professional Inquiry: Some Issues |
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D. P. Dash Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, INDIA dpdash[AT]ximb.ac.in, professor_dash[AT]yahoo.co.uk |
Draft Version March 20, 2005 (Please do not quote) |
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What is worth doing at all is worth doing well -- Anonymous
1. Research in Professional Context
Research within a professional community is the process of improving and extending professional practice, through the creation of a variety of shared resources, which can be used by any member. It is a mechanism for professionals to help develop their profession as well as their fellow professionals, through sharing of useful resources, which can come in various forms, such as problems, practices, stories, cases, rules, designs, models, methods, tools, vocabulary, systems, etc.
Maintaining a high standard of professional service over a long period of time proves difficult. It takes many years of careful grooming and institutional effort to develop competent professionals. But, this professional competence turns out to be a rather perishable commodity--liable to be outmoded due to ongoing changes in the professional context. Therefore, there is a need to revitalise it from time to time. That is why we speak of the need to have a process of continuous professional development. Professional inquiry (or research by professionals) is a part of that process.
Usually, research is seen as creation of knowledge that provides answers to some of our questions and liberates us from some of our hardships. In a professional context, research can be expected to play a similar role, duly adapted to the realities of specific professions. Every profession has its share of questions and hardships, which are not always addressed by the creation of knowledge. Often what is required is a combination of knowledge, skills, actions, practices, communications, interactions, systems, etc. Therefore, it is proper to expect professional research to contribute by developing the profession, extending its reach and influence, and facilitating fruitful connections within itself and with external points of reference.
2. Upgrading Professional Knowledge
Given the traditional connection of research with creation of knowledge, let’s examine the types of knowledge involved within a profession. Typically, professional knowledge is multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary. It has explicit (objective) components as well as tacit (subjective) components. That is why, learning from the textbook is only one aspect of professional learning; practical training, apprenticeship, etc., must supplement it. When professionals make decisions or solve problems in the course of their everyday professional practice, they draw upon their knowledge of multiple disciplines and fields. Sometimes, difficulties arise due to the uncertainties associated with this process. The quality of knowledge may not be adequate; also the use of knowledge may not be proper. Therefore, every profession spends some effort in revising and upgrading the knowledge processes associated with its practice.
Let’s discuss some of the common systems followed by most professions, to upgrade their knowledge processes. Three such systems will be described below: objective system, pragmatic system, and self-organising system.
2.1. Objective System
This system is based on the idea of building a reliable knowledge base that can be used by any member of the profession. It involves two general steps: (a) a continuous enrichment of the knowledge base and (b) a systematic transfer of that knowledge base to the members of the profession. This is an established system in several professions, e.g., the medical profession. As they understand the human anatomy better and better, they are able to upgrade their professional practice in the medical profession.
Despite the sound logic, two basic difficulties are encountered in following this system. First, it is not clear in many cases whether there is something like a stable reality (e.g., human anatomy) that might be understood better and better. Second, no profession can wait indefinitely for some objective knowledge to be created in an area that requires a professional response now.
2.2. Pragmatic System
In this system, professionals use whatever tricks seem to work in comparable situations. With periodic experience sharing among the practitioners, a number of solutions are developed over time. Again we find examples of this in the medical profession. The general advice these days to avoid what is called cot death (the unexplained death of young babies while sleeping) is to place the baby on its back, perhaps for easier breathing. The underlying causes of this malaise are not known (in the sense of objective knowledge) but the above advice seems to work.
However, there are a number of weaknesses of this approach too. There might be a multiplicity of advice in a given situation, from which it would be difficult to choose. New situations can arise, for which no one may have a response. Sometimes, one cannot be confident that a solution that worked in one context would indeed work in another context.
2.3. Self-Organising System
The self-organising system involves the spontaneous construction of a combination (e.g., system, network, framework, process, environment, etc.) that functions as the basis of a unique competence. We can see this happening in nature, among fire ants—a group of species that have inculcated a unique competence to survive during floods. When uprooted from their colonies due to flooding the fire ants spontaneously form a raft-like mass that just floats downstream until the water subsides (or it encounters high ground) and the ants then form new colonies there.
In this system, it is important to nurture and develop the ability of professionals to be so related to each other that they are able to come together spontaneously to bring forth some unique combination that enables them to respond to some challenge. There can be different implementations of this approach. One of them is implied by the notion of knowledge networks. Another is implied by the idea of learning community. In each of these, there is an awareness that the current challenges before the profession require new competencies not existing within the profession today. Since it is not already known how such competencies might be created, the profession should create opportunities for its members to interact in a variety of new ways that increase the possibility of new combinations of interests, skills, and learning to crystallise.
3. Improving Professional Practice
Improvement of professional practice can be characterised in many ways. What constitutes an improvement is a moot point. The criteria are chosen to define professional improvement must be relevant to the internal and external realities witnessed by the profession in question. Secondly, the criteria must be in tune with the intrinsic values (or virtues) associated with that profession. Only two characteristics are proposed below, more in the way of opening up the topic for further discussion. The two characteristics proposed here are: flexible specialisation and collective intelligence.
3.1. Flexible Specialisation
There is a need to develop flexible specialisation within most professional communities today. The following graphic illustrates the idea. Following this idea, each member of the profession develops a primary area of expertise and, simultaneously, develops a set of secondary areas of interest/expertise as well. That set may vary from member to member. Each member should have the freedom to choose the primary and the secondary areas. The more senior members must help others decide on the appropriate secondary areas.
Figure 1. Flexible specialisation
As Figure 1 suggests, the boundary of a flexible specialist’s domain of expertise is not at all stable. There is too much dynamics within the individual areas of focus to warrant a stable boundary. There is always something new emerging.
Seen from the angle of continuous professional education, this presents a unique challenge to any profession. It is challenging because it requires a huge variety of knowledge to be managed within the profession. Some of the more established approaches to managing professional knowledge may not be effective here.
I will now outline a method for using this approach to develop a new stream of professional development activity within your profession. The method is called Co-operative Inquiry.
3.2. Collective Intelligence
It is not enough to produce more and more professionals who are individually competent; it is equally important to extend the collective intelligence of the entire professional community. As a result, the community becomes better able to assimilate new information, be more aware of the new challenges to the profession, and better direct its efforts at meeting those challenges. This is necessary for the long-term survival and development of any profession.
For more clarity on the notion of collective intelligence, please see an article by George Pór: The Quest for Collective Intelligence, available online at: http://www.vision-nest.com/btbc/cb/chapters/quest.shtml
4. Characterising Professional Inquiry
Professional inquiry is another name for research carried out by professionals in order to upgrade professional competence and improve professional practice. A framework is proposed here to define some of the broad characteristics of professional inquiry. The framework speaks of five basic elements typically involved in research work (in any field).
5. Some Enablers of Professional Inquiry
5.1. Creativity
No professional work can be done without a little bit of creativity. Let’s call that first-order creativity. There is also another type of creativity, relevant to the present discussion. It is the creativity with respect to how we change the basic organisational and conceptual structures that guide our creative action. We can call that second-order creativity.
The need for second-order creativity arises when the nature of challenges facing a profession requires significantly new practices to be developed and new standards to be defined. A profession that fails to recognise such moments in its evolutionary path, continues functioning according to the familiar rules of the past. Typically, such a profession goes through a period of crisis, and eventually becomes irrelevant to the wider society. No amount of professional inquiry can save it without a heavy dose of second-order creativity.
Even in less drastic situations, the existing organisational and conceptual structures guiding a profession need to be questioned and, if necessary, replaced with more appropriate alternatives. This implies, at any point, a profession must have a plurality of alternative ideas to choose from. It also requires an ongoing process of critical self-reflection within a profession and a readiness to experiment and explore.
5.2. Communication
Research is facilitated by communications. Research and inquiry flourishes in an environment where professionals are keen to communicate about what they are doing (in their respective fields of work), what they find difficult, and how they are planning to deal with these. Such communications help in the identification of common difficulties, dissemination of innovative practices, and generations of ideas about solving everyday problems.
Professional inquiry will be difficult to promote in an environment where members do not meet often, colleagues do not know each other, and there are no forums where people can share their experiences. These are necessary for pursuing the ideas presented here.
5.3. Cooperation
Professional inquiry can greatly benefit from cooperation among professional colleagues who have similar interests and questions. It can be practised through small inquiry teams. Members can team up around specific themes, questions, issues, or topics. They bring with them their experiences and thoughts. They also bring with them openness to new ideas and new learning. The purpose of joining an inquiry team is to improve one’s professional practice and help the profession develop. The inquiry process typically proceeds in phases of action and reflection, going through several cycles. Therefore, it is also a form of reflective practice.
Such a process can be supported by using collaborative technologies that support people working in groups. Examples of such technologies are interactive management, Web-based asynchronous conferencing, listservs, eGroups, collaborative writing, multi-user domains, etc.
Students in professional schools can benefit themselves and their professions by following a cooperative inquiry process with their teachers, fellow students, practising professionals, and others. Some guidelines on this can be found in the following article by Philip Agre: How to Be a Leader in Your Field: A Guide for Students in Professional Schools, available online at: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/leader.html | |
