Table Of ContentAction Research and
Reflective Practice
The use of reflection as a tool to support and develop practice is becom-
ing increasingly recognised across education, health care and the social
sciences. Reflection is used to create depth of knowledge and meaning,
both for self and for those practised upon. Running alongside the use
ofreflection is the prevalent use of action research, which some see as a
way of approaching the study of human beings from a philosophical
perspective, in which sharing takes place within mutually supportive
environments. As a result, many academics and practitioners suggest that
one cannot improve the methodology of action research without
considering philosophical reflection.
In Action Research and Reflective Practice,Paul McIntosh argues that
reflective practice and action research can become mechanistic in their
use unless fresh creative approaches are employed. Exploring the tension
between the use of evidence-based practice, based upon solid ‘objective’
research, and reflection, with its ‘subjectivity’ and personal perception, this
book argues that reflection is research. McIntosh increases the prevalence
and effectiveness of both action research and reflection through the
application of new creative and visual approaches.
Action Research and Reflective Practice demonstrates that creative
approaches can be utilised effectively in critically reflexive ways, creating
a new style of action research that is both innovative and theoretically
robust. The resulting approach will improve evidence-based research in
education, health care and other social sciences to enhance perception
and understanding of events, identity and self. This book will be highly
beneficial to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as edu-
cational and social researchers, across a broad range of subjects within
the social sciences.
Paul McIntosh has a background of working as a practitioner in both
health and social care in the field of learning disabilities, and extensive
experience of higher education for health and social care professionals.
Action Research and
Reflective Practice
Creative and visual methods
to facilitate reflection and
learning
Paul McIntosh
First published 2010
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
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©2010 Paul McIntosh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McIntosh, Paul.
Action research and reflective practice : creative and visual methods to
facilitate reflection and learning / Paul McIntosh.
p. cm.
1. Action research in education–Great Britain. 2. Reflective teaching–Great
Britain. I. Title.
LB1028.24.M386 2010
370.7’2–dc22 2009030417
ISBN 0-203-86011-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–46901–5 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–46902–3 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–86011–X (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–46901–2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–46902–9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–86011–3 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Preface viii
PART 1
From evidence-based practice to researcher
of the self 1
1 The tension in evidence-based practice and
reflective practice 5
2 The relationship between reflection and action
research 31
3 An overview of theories of consciousness and
unconsciousness 56
PART 2
Creativity and the practitioner-researcher 81
4 What do we mean by creativity? 85
5 Using metaphor and symbolism as analysis 113
6 Infinite possibilities of knowing and transformation 142
7 Concluding thoughts: the linkages to action
research and critical creativity 176
Index 190
Acknowledgements
Although this book is entirely of my own construction, there are
numerous people whose ideas have contributed to it. Not least Jack
Sanger, whose guidance through the research itself and since has been
invaluable. I also need to thank the teaching staff who have contributed
to the reflective learning work that I have implemented within the Faculty
of Health, Wellbeing and Science at University Campus, Suffolk, and have
been prepared to take risks with their teaching in an ever-increasing
conformist world of practice, in particular Jane Parr and Pauline Newson,
and Catherine Theodosius for her critical readership.
Then there are the colleagues who have subsequently become friends:
Paula Sobiechowska, whose wonderfully witty emails and conversations
keep me sane; Jill Robinson, for always providing me with belief in myself
and my work; and Angie Titchen, who has shown a true interest in what
Iamtrying to do. I’m always flattered when Angie says, ‘Thank you for
thinking of me,’ as I always feel it should be the other way round ...
Finally, I have to thank the students who have participated so actively
in my form of reflective learning and given such positive feedback. In
particular, I wish to thank ‘those who cannot be named’ (though I wish
Icould, out of courtesy and respect) – those who have allowed me to use
their work for this book – I am indebted to you, so thank you.
On a more personal note, I need to thank the nursing and medical
team in West Bergholt Ward at Colchester General Hospital, who in
2007 quite literally put me back together, and the physiotherapy unit at
Walnut Tree Hospital in Sudbury, Suffolk – Pat Large and Roy Lowhan
– for getting me mobile again. I also need to thank Philip Mudd, my
commissioning editor at Routledge, who has been so very patient and
supportive in giving me the time I need to complete this book. And very
last but not least, my wife Iona and daughters Romy and Brenna for all
their care when I really needed it and since. Thank you.
Preface
In September 2007 I was involved in a serious road accident, which left
me with three fractured thoracic vertebrae (amongst other fractures),
severe head trauma, a collapsed lung and severe nerve damage to my upper
right arm and shoulder. I spent a total of eight weeks in West Bergholt
Ward at Colchester General Hospital in the UK, seven of them lying flat
on my back. During that time – and since then – I have had such close
contact with people in the health service that my friend and mentor Jack
Sanger has suggested that the measures I took to conduct an ethnographic
study of the NHS were, in hindsight, rather extreme! There is, however,
a perverse truth to this joke, for I was able to witness first-hand the
working lives of the medical and nursing staff, listen to their experiences
and take part in the systems in which they function.
But first a word of praise: the care I have received throughout my
recovery has been excellent, from my hospital admission through to
discharge and ongoing therapy, and it is a testament to all those involved
that I am back on my feet again. I owe them my gratitude for this. What
concerns and puzzles me – and I see this book as something of a puzzle
to be assembled – are the conflicts that these people work through as
health professionals, and which I feel are shared by those working in the
social and educational professions. First, there is the requirement for
practice to be evidence-based through research, and by this I mean
particular types of research which are grounded in scientificmethodologies
and used pragmatically; and second, there is the requirement to reflect
upon one’s own practice and to develop meaning from this, which creates
understanding of oneself and of the person practised upon. Whilst I am
fortunate that those who cared for me were certainly applying the
principles of the former, my observations have led me to conclude that
there is little, if any, engagement with the latter. This is not a criticism of
those individuals; it is simply an observation of the efficiency model used
Preface ix
in the NHS which is reliant on tangible productivity and output, and
which leaves little opportunity, time or consideration for observations on
the inner and outer world experienced by those who work within it.
Continuing with this theme of reductionism is the way in which
reflective practice, when in use, is applied. The use of reflective practice
as a tool to support and develop practice is becoming increasingly
recognised across the health and social sciences and education. Reflection
is assumed to create depth of knowledge and meaning for both the self
and those practised upon, and its basis lies in self-awareness and awareness
of others. It is also reliant on observation of both our inner and outer
selves, and on the observation of ourselves by others. Yet we reduce this
complex activity to a pragmatic and cyclical process, with subheadings
and action plans that have limited use as a theoretical resource, but provide
a reader with ‘evidence’ of ‘reflection’ produced by the writer. The
articulation of any of this awareness is generally through language, and as
professionals we are prone to limiting these observations in factual,
objective and written text, for that is what counts as a professional
standard. In short, we are losing the powers of creativity and intellectual-
isation and have mislaid our reflexive roots in favour of all that is literal.
It could be therefore argued that in its current misuse, reflection is not
working.
It is at this juncture that I reinforce the point that the professional
domain is governed by the judicious use of scientificevidence, and follow
it by asking a question which in this case is applied to those working in
the caring and education professions: what is it, then, that makes this
evidence work when it is applied to unique human beings?This is something
that I hope will become clear, and that will lead us to better understanding
later.
At this point we come to action research. Some writers, such as
John Elliott and Alison Morton-Cooper, feel that action research as a
methodology cannot be improved upon unless the approach to it is
critically reflexive (and I agree with them). In their view, claims to validity
of knowledge within a particular domain can be examined and contested,
leading to new ways of thinking, seeing and acting. What Donald Schon
and others term ‘reflective practice’, Elliott (1991) terms ‘action research’,
and I feel that the capacity for each of us to become individual practitioner-
researcherslies in this concept.
This book is split into two halves, Part 1 and Part 2. In Part 1, Chapter
1examines the tensions between evidence-based practice and reflective
practice and draws upon a short history of medicine to illustrate the source
of the model for evidence-based practice and the anomalies that exist
