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Chapter Eleven – A Critical Reflection on the Study – Page 320
Seeking out reorienting or disconfirming observations
Because of the exploratory nature of the work and the absence of formal hypotheses,
disconfirming observations per se do not exist. I remain very open to alternative
explanations for the phenomena that I have variously described, analysed and
interpreted. One consideration worth making is what would result if there was no notion
of the unconscious. This would inevitably be a discordant perspective, because the
research model would not have a significant overlap with the teaching model and the
practice model. However, the main result would seem to be that without a body of
theory to provide sensitising concepts (Malinowski, 1984/1922), the study would
become merely descriptive.
Good participative role relationships
The participation in research required of participants in the group under study (the
students and my colleague) was largely a passive one, specifically that they give
permission for data to be collected whilst they were taking part in the teaching and
learning, and for analytic work to be done on that data by the researcher outside of the
teaching session. Little else was required of participants by the research in addition to
the existing expectation of their participation as students in the teaching and learning. In
this sense, the relationships between them and the tutors, and between them as
individuals, and the complex variations on those relationships that have been the focus
of this study, were a matter of concern and importance for pedagogic purposes
throughout the conduct of the research. They are also considered good for research
purposes, as far as is possible to assess in this context. From a comparison with a
number of other intakes on this course, it did not appear at the time of the fieldwork or
on subsequent reflection that there was a significant impact of the tape-recording, of the
sessions and of the staff conversation in the break, on the interaction that was recorded