The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

The work-reflection-learning cycle in SE student projects: Use of collaboration tools
viewpoints on the project process that had not emerged in the workshop – at least not
clearly enough to be explicitly addressed in the teams‟ discussion at the time. From the
interviews and my subsequent re-examination of the workshop data, there was reason to
believe that these viewpoints had already been there during the workshop (and were not
mainly results of maturation after the workshop), but they had been expressed only halfheartedly
then. The viewpoints were those of the less dominant team members. My
initial interpretation of how the workshop had changed the team‟s view of the process
reflected the perspective of the more dominant team members.
These insights served as an important reminder that I might have been attending more to
the activity and viewpoints of some team members than others during the many hours of
observation – maybe because they were the students most clearly influencing the team‟s
development work and the project process, and maybe because they were the ones most
able and prone to share their insights and viewpoints during day-to-day work. Apart
from providing methodological insights, the follow-up interviews made me refine the
findings (in P8) on the use of historical data in retrospective reflection (acknowledging
that data originating in a certain tool might be more relevant to some team members
than others and serve to strengthen already dominant views on the process) and on how
a reflection workshop should be conducted (e.g. by using explicit facilitation to make
everyone‟s voice heard).
Considering all the studies in the PhD research, a triangulation of data sources has been
applied throughout. This includes interviews with project participants and stakeholders,
contributing to multiple interpretations. Going back to participants to check if the
researcher‟s conceptions of the phenomena in question match those of the participants
has mainly been done for the longitudinal studies of single teams.
7.3.2 On the work in the thesis as design research
Design research in education is directed at “developing, testing, implementing, and
diffusing innovative practices to move the socially constructed forms of teaching and
learning from malfunction to function or from function to excellence” (Kelly et al.
2008a).
The improvement of practice should involve the participants (e.g. students and teachers
(Brown 1992; Collins 1992)) in the process. Brown describes her intentions with design
experiments in educational research as to ”transform classrooms from academic work
factories to learning environments that encourage reflective practice among students,
teachers, and researchers.” (p.174) The focus of the research in this thesis on better
equipping teams in SE student teams to reflect on their own practice could be seen as a
way of achieving this, although the focus is on reflection as part of work practice.
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