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Hi and welcome, Dianne I think we've had a connection in the past, probably through HERDSA or ALARPM. Nice to see your name pop up again. Kind regards Pip Bruce Ferguson (N.Z.) -----Original Message----- From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dianne Allen Sent: Monday, 30 July 2007 10:52 a.m. To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Convenor's welcome Hello, Jack, and others here. If I have anything to add to the conversation here, it is in relation to what might be implicit in my understanding of the nature of practice-relevant research, as I worked up to express it in my master's thesis. I was drawing on some of the themes and work of a number of participants here in this list, and some of my expressed, and some unposted engagements with the debate here and at JeKan's LAR site. The following links might take your other readers to what I have done. Access to Thesis: http://www.library.uow.edu.au/adt-NWU/public/adt-NWU20050901.105532/index.ht ml Access to My Current Professional Interests: http://www.cfkeep.org/html/snapshot.php?id=60792183653258 I also append an attachment of extracts from my final thesis chapter for those interested. In summary, I find that in exercising my judgement about standards of educational practice, I use a multitude of criteria, applied to the multiple evaluative dimensions associated with educational practice. From Donald Schon, I understand practice to be the exercise of multiple evaluations, over multiple dimensions, in sequence, where the sequence can be re-cast, if the solution proves unsatisfactory, in-practice, taking us into 'creativity', or what Schon called 'reframing'. From my understanding of inputs from Michael Patton, Stephen Toulmin, Chris Argyris, Donald Schon, Gregaory Bateson, and John Heron, and the engagement of John Heron with Egon Guba and Yvonne Lincoln, I have come to the understanding that "My more nuanced understanding of the nature of inquiry, and of inquiry into practice, in-practice, including inquiry into the practitioner's thinking that is informing action, suggests that reflective research of practice can never be a singular, undifferentiated activity. Consequently, there can be no simple formulation for evaluating the quality of reflective research of practice. The methods employed to conduct any research of practice need to be various, so that there can be a match of what is being inquired into, by what method, and with a view to the kind of knowledge that needs to be formed by such a process, including consideration of the intrinsic values being applied to humanness in the way such knowledge is developed." Dianne Allen Kiama Australia