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Chapter Ten – Summary and Conclusions – Page 315
of the actual experience of presence and participation in the events of the semester. In
addition to the absence of a colleague in the room and during the break, more use would
have to have been made of private reflection by the sole tutor researcher. In the absence
of other reflective space to replace these losses, it is unlikely that the researcher would
have been able to manage the range of tasks involved. An alternative might be a model
more akin to traditional participant observation, with a sole tutor and the researcher
taking part more as a participant and observing professional researcher. This change
would generate more distance and potential objectivity which would be a possible gain,
but it would also lose some privileged positioning.
CONCLUSION
What can be learned as a result of this research, in relation to the two questions posed at
the start of the thesis? How does the learning group operate, and how can it be
investigated? In a manner that is a theme in the thesis, these two questions and the
answers of each of them are linked, in a way that they seem to be adjacent.
Taking the second question first, how can the learning group be investigated, this leads
mostly to methodological findings. These are in two sets: one is that there is a way of
understanding groups evolved from clinical literature and of applying and using that
understanding, effectively a product of this thesis, that can be used by others in
research; the other is a demonstration of this understanding in operation.
To return to the first question, how does the learning group operate, this leads mostly to
substantive findings. Much of these findings is in the form of elaboration and
exemplification of processes of interaction, as well as consideration of their meaning
and implications.