Let's change the subject line when the subject changes or evolves
into something different.

I think we have moved from ''process vs. outcomes - language
Roger's comment'' to something like ''limiting perspectives''.
Feel free to come up with a different/better title or change it
again.

I think it may also serve us well to maintain an OUTDOOR theme as
we get entangled in these multi-ological conversations.

Barbara indicates some ways of doing so in her quotation about
social theory from Evans and Davies. Barbara suggests that it
offers ''a perspective for our debate on research on teaching and
learning in outdoors''.

Barbara and others may choose to emphasise different phrases from
her quotation, but these are the four that stand out for me:
- a vehicle for thinking otherwise
- It offers a challenge and modes of thought other than those
articulated by dominant others.
- makes the familiar strange ... [and the strange familiar?]
- to open up spaces for intervention of new forms of experience

I think that all four themes can be both about *outdoor* learning
as well as about *researching* outdoor learning.

Our journey as researchers has many of the same features as an
outdoor journey. The outdoors offers a new perspective ''for
thinking otherwise''. The journey at first appears to be
''outward bound'' and about things out there. At some point it
becomes a journey that is ''inward bound''. This inner journey
(of the researcher) has been off-limits for traditional research.
Critical theory (as I now understand it after reading the article
recommended by Steve B. in the Handbook of Qualitative Research)
takes this much further - as even the most self-aware and
self-critical researcher has a few blind spots that can only be
discovered with the help of others.

Back to the outdoors ...
there is a limit to how much you can learn about yourself on a
solo, just as there is a limit to how much you can learn about
yourself in a group feedback session. For critical research, it
seems, there is always a limit and never an end ... so for those
of you who are having trouble completing your research on time -
you must be doing critical research!

This reminds me of the 'hidden curriculum', and the danger that
teachers believe they can see it *all* once they have learned
what the hidden curriculum is. The discussion about how simple or
complex our minds are matters far less, I think, than discussing
ways of finding out what is hidden, and how we can do so by
changing or combining perspectives - something that James has
helpfully clarified - on the value of working together. In
critical theory there seems to be no limits.

Back to the outdoors ...
I believe that, quite properly, there are limits (and values)
within the outdoor education setting, but once you are a fully
fledged adult you are free to push yourself beyond the limits and
go for the first round the world non-stop swim.

I think research design depends on the kind of question we ask.
Yes, we should also question the question. But if we question
that too, we may be heading for a lonely swim. I think critical
research, at the very least, can help us to acknowledge the
questions we are not asking. It may also tempt us to ask the
kinds of questions that will help outdoor learning research to
break through new frontiers. But I happen to believe that the
best research will not come from the deepest questions but from
the most perspectives.

Back to the outdoors ...
I think that the giving and receiving of gifts that participants
have made for each other (multi-perspective appraisal) is of far
greater value than having deep discussions about the meaning of
life.

I prefer the idea of seeking several answers to one question to
that of seeking one answer to several questions. One answer to
several questions is a classic case of being locked into a single
perspective.

Roger Greenaway
Reviewing Skills Training
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http://reviewing.co.uk