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lit.£r u’r I III

A Typology of Reﬂective Learning
By

Matthew Douglas Geisler

A Thesis
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Science

Department of Agricultural and Extension Education

2000

Abstract
A TYPOLOGY OF REFLECTIVE LEARNING
By

Matthew Douglas Geisler

This study explored the phenomenon of reﬂective learning, looking at a speciﬁc
case: a study abroad program in Nepal and the participants of the program. The intent of
the study was to explore the reﬂective learning phenomenon in relation to the participants
during the time of the program, particularly, exploring the process of reﬂective learning.

Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted at
three separate periods of the 11 week program: weeks two and three; weeks ﬁve and six;
and weeks ten and eleven. These interview dialogues were the unit of analysis, using a
grounded theory methodology to discover major themes and characteristics.

The ﬁndings are presented in two sections, one presenting a Typology of
Reﬂective Learning, and two, a typological description of particular learner types. The
Typology of Reﬂective Learning was found to consist of four main category types: Focus
of Reﬂective Learning; Means of Reﬂective Learning; Intent of Reﬂective Learning;
Inﬂuences on Reﬂective Learning. All learner participants expressed varying degrees of
these basic core category types when discussing their reﬂective learning. The typological
description of particular learner types presents composite pictures of particular learners
who were representative of a learning continuum, of which all learner participants were a
part. The representative learners presented were of three types: Questioning Learner;

Synthesizing Learner; and Content Informed Learner.

Dedicated to my mother and father

iii

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to give special thanks to the 31 participants whose words gave
a voice to this study. It was do to their kindness and generosity that I was able to embark
upon this reﬂective journey of learning. I hope my words have given justice to their
insightful learning. I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Murari Suvedi, and my two
committee members, Dr. S. Joseph Levine, and Dr. John Schweitzer. It was do to their
informative guidance that I was able to progress and complete this endeavor. I would also
like to thank all those who helped inproviding informative insight regarding this text and
its many revisions. You know who you are! Finally, I would like to give thanks to my

mother and father, who taught me the most important lesson in life, the value of learning.

iv

Table of Contents

List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... x
List ofFigures .................................................................................................................... xi
Chapter I
Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
Overview ...................................................................................................... 1
Reﬂective Learning .......................................................................... 2
Learning/Study Abroad .................................................................... 4
Reﬂective Learning and Learning/Study Abroad ............................ 5
Purpose of Study .......................................................................................... 8
Research Objectives ..................................................................................... 8
Context of the Study .................................................................................... 9
Nepal ................................................................................................ 9
Study Abroad Program in Nepal .................................................... 10
Operational Deﬁnition of Terms ................................................................ 12
Chapter II
Review of Literature .............................................................................................. 14
Learning ..................................................................................................... 15
Behaviorists .................................................................................... 16
Cognitivists .................................................................................... 1 8
Constructivists ............................................................................... 1 8
Adult Learning ............................................................................... 20

Reﬂective Learning .................................................................................... 24

Learning/ Study Abroad .............................................................................. 38
Chapter III

Methodology .......................................................................................................... 44

Naturalistic Study ....................................................................................... 44

Rationale for Naturalistic Study ................................................................ 49

Grounded Theory ....................................................................................... 50

Rationale for Grounded Theory ................................................................. 52

Questions Guiding Study ........................................................................... 52

Assumptions of the Study .......................................................................... 53

Study POpulation and Data Sources ........................................................... 54

Data Analysis ............................................................................................. 57

Veriﬁcation ................................................................................................ 59

Limitations of the Study ............................................................................ 62

Chapter IV

Findings ................................................................................................................. 64
Section One. Reflective Learning Deconstructed: Typology of Reﬂective

Learning ..................................................................................................... 65

Core Category Type One: Focus of Reﬂective Learning .............. 67

Content Reﬂection ............................................................. 68

Process Reﬂection .............................................................. 73

Premise Reﬂection ............................................................. 76

Core Category Type Two: Means of Reﬂective Learning ............. 77

vi

Activities ............................................................................ 79

Self ..................................................................................... 81

People ................................................................................. 82
Experience .......................................................................... 85

Core Category Type Three: Reﬂective Learning Intent ................ 86
Anticipated Impact ............................................................. 86
Uncertain Impact ................................................................ 87
Perceived Impact ................................................................ 88

Core Category Type Four: Inﬂuences on Reﬂective Learning ...... 89
Adaptability ........................................................................ 90

Time ................................................................................... 92
Communication .................................................................. 94
Summary .................................................................................................... 95

Section Two. Reﬂective Learning Reconstructed: A Typology of

Reﬂective Learners .................................................................................... 95
Individual Learners ........................................................... 97

Kevin ........................................................................ 97

Gael ....................................................................... 1 00

Mark ....................................................................... 103

Gwyn ...................................................................... 107

Andy ....................................................................... l 10

Roy ......................................................................... l 13

Summary .................................................................................................. l 18

vii

Chapter V

Summary of Findings, Conclusion and Implications ........................................... 120
Summary of Findings ............................................................................... 120
The Presence of Reﬂective Learning: A Typology of Reﬂective
Learning ....................................................................................... 121
The Focus of Reﬂective Learning .................................... 121
Reﬂective Learning Means .............................................. 125
Reﬂective Intent: What it Meant for the Learner ............. 127

Inﬂuences on the Experience of the Reﬂective Learner..128

Reﬂective Learning Reconstructed: A Typology of Reﬂective

Learners ........................................................................................ 131
Conclusions ............................................................................................. 136
Reﬂective Learning Typology ..................................................... 137
Typology of Reﬂective Learning ................................................. 137
The Group, The Learner and The Social Dynamics of Reﬂective
Learning ....................................................................................... 138
Reﬂective Learning as a Function of Time .................................. 138
The Informal Interview, and Its' Pedagogical Function ............... 139
The Function of the Research Methodology ................................ 140
Implications .............................................................................................. 140

Recognizing the complexity of reﬂective learning and reﬂective
learners ......................................................................................... 141

Strong consideration should be given to the social dimension of
reﬂective learning ........................................................................ 142

A one-to-one learning focused interview is an effective means
through which to facilitate reﬂective learning ............................. 143

viii

Having a learner perspective is needed to foster reﬂective learning

in a study abroad experience ........................................................ 144

Afterword: A Reﬂexive Response Regarding Reﬂective Learning ..................... 144
Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 150
References ........................................................................................................................ 1 59

ix

List of Tables

Table 1 - Pedagogy and Andragogy .................................................................................. 21
Table 2 - Habermas's Knowledge Types .......................................................................... 26
Table 3 - Typology of Reﬂective Learning ............................................................... 66, 121
Table 4 - Focus of Reﬂective Learning ....................................................................... 67—68
Table 5 - Means of Reﬂective Learning ........................................................................... 78
Table 6 - Reﬂective Learning Intent .................................................................................. 86
Table 7 - Inﬂuences on Reﬂective Learning ...................................................................... 90
Table 8 — Typology of Reﬂective Learners ...................................................................... 132

List of Figures

Figure 1 - Kolb's Model of Experiential Learning ............................................................. 30
Figure 2 — FEU Experience and Reﬂection Model ............................................................ 32
Figure 3 - Reﬂection and Learning Model ........................................................................ 33

xi

Chapter I

Introduction

Overview

This study explored reﬂective learning as it related to persons learning in the
context of the Spring 1999 semester, Study Abroad Program in Nepal, offered through
Michigan State University. The idea of reﬂective learning has been written about
extensively by numerous individuals interested in educational philosophy and learning
theory (Dewey, 1933, 1955; Perry, 1970; Agrayis, & Schon, 1974; Freire, 1974, 1990;
Schon, 1983; Boud, Keogh & Walker, 1985; Mezirow, 1990). The works produced by
these individuals have described reﬂective learning within the contexts of a variety of
interests, respectively: educational philosophy (Dewey, 1933, 1955); intellectual
development (Perry, 1970); professional practice (Agrayis & Schon, 1974); emancipatory
social process (Freire, 1974); learning from experience (Boud et al.1985); and adult
learning theory (Mezirow, 1990).

A discourse regarding reﬂective learning has extended the parameters of
educational policy and research in relation to learning processes. A discourse is a series
of norms, rules, values and practices that guide a social phenomenon (Best & Keller,
1991). The general purpose of this study was to add to the discourse regarding reﬂective
learning, exploring its potential presence, and signiﬁcance, with learners participating in
a study abroad program in Nepal. During the process of conducting and completing work
on this study, it became apparent that developing a typological analysis of reﬂective

learning was a fruitful possibility. Thus, although this objective did not inform the initial

intent of the thesis, it does form the basis for the overall ﬁndings.

Because the study was contextually dependent on reﬂective learning, facilitated
through the participation in a study abroad experience in Nepal, adding to the discourse
regarding learning through study abroad experiences was also of interest. The discourse
surrounding study abroad learning experiences must often defend against disavowing
views towards the learning that can occur through these types of experiences. Thus, the
continuing discourse must often look to substantiate new validations of the learning that
can occur for a learner participant in this type of learning program (Goodwin & Nacht,
1988; Hoffa, 1996, Sommer, 1997, Pusch, 1997). An additional aim of this study was to
add to the continuing discourse surrounding learning through participation in a study

abroad experience, by giving a voice to the learner in the process of learning.

Reﬂective Learning

The idea of reﬂective learning has been deﬁned from the vantage of varying
perspectives. These deﬁnitions are generally inclusive of the particular rhetoric
conducive to the particular perspective through which it is informed. The variability in
deﬁnitions is, in part, do to the ambiguity associated with the phenomenon of reﬂective
learning, as well as an indication of the differing perspectives through which it is
discussed and deﬁned. Following are a few of these varying deﬁnitions so as to present
the reader with an understanding of the phenomenon.

Boud et al. (1985) argues that the concepts' inception can be found as far back as

Aristotle's discussions of practical judgement and moral action in his Ethics. In their own

 

view, "reﬂection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual and

affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to
lead to new understandings and appreciation's" (Boud et al., 1985, p.19).

Iarvis (1987) deﬁnes reﬂective learning as "a process of deep thought, both a
looking backwards to the situation being pondered upon and a projecting forward to the
future, being a process of both recall and reason" (p. 86—87).

Boyd and Fales (1983) state reﬂective learning as " the process of internally
examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates
and clariﬁes meaning in terms of self, and which results in a changed conceptual
perspective" (p. 100).

To clarify these deﬁnitions, contrasting views of learning may be of beneﬁt. In
contrast to reﬂective learning, Dewey (1933) pointed out the process of trial and error as
a means through which individuals come to learn speciﬁcs to a problem. In this case,
learning is conﬁned to the information that is specific to the inquiry of interest. Other
non-reﬂective learning occurs through such processes as memorization and skills
acquisition. These processes deal more with the receiving and giving of information.

Reﬂective learning, however, looks to make the connections between experiences
and the learner, and the perceptual relationships that govern those experiences.
Reﬂective learning involves a dialectical relationship between the learner and experience,
involving a revolving process of relating new experiences and knowledge to that which
was previously known.

As stated above, deﬁnitions regarding reﬂective learning vary in their
terminology, particularly in relation to the context for which they are used. Still, most

deﬁnitions express a notion of thought and learning, containing both cognitive and

affective dimensions, which relates past knowledge and experience with new experiences
and new ideas that stem from them, in seeking to come to a new, revised, or reafﬁrrned
understanding or meaning of the experience for the individual learner.

Much of the emphasis on reﬂective learning is the result of an educational shift of
perspectives from the teacher to the learner. This perspective accounts for the individual
learner actively engaging in her/his socio/cultural environment, and how the individual
recognizes the harmony or disharmony he or she has in this environment (Jarvis, 1987).
Many authors point to the signiﬁcance that this so-called disharmony, uncertainty, dis-
equilibrium, etc., has for the process of reﬂective thinking and reﬂective learning (Dewey

1933; Piaget 1950; Brookﬁeld, 1987; Mezirow, 1991).

Learning/Study Abroad

Michigan State University, along with other educational institutions within the
United States, is centinuing to increase the availability of study abroad programs to its
students. Study abroad programs have been referenced as a "new prototype" for
understanding different perspectives of education that are more holistic and multifaceted
(Kauffman et al., 1992). The increased proliferation of these programs may be perceived
as a genuine recognition regarding the potentials such learning programs offer to
students. Some argue that these learning opportunities have become widely recognized as
important for a student's overall undergraduate education (Laubscher, 1994). Others have
gone as far as to voice a warning that "leaders of American academe should recognize
that this is a fast-moving ﬁeld that they ignore at their peril" (Goodwin & Nacht, 1988, p.

118).

Michigan State University has seemingly recognized these declarations, and has
taken direct policy initiatives in making the opportunity to study abroad increasing
available for its students, with the ultimate objective to make it a part of an undergraduate
students educational curriculum. It has established an institutional goal of sending 40
percent of its undergraduate student population overseas, for study abroad, by the year
2006.

The advances in travel and communicative technologies are creating profound
changes in world dynamics. As citizens from various places become spatially and
temporally closer, the necessity for facilitating the development of global perspectives
has become a growing reality, as the realities of our world continue to transform.
Integrating a study abroad learning experience into a student's undergraduate education
may be viewed as a response to this changing global situation. These factors were
additional reasons for conducting this study, with a speciﬁc interest in understanding the
phenomenon of reﬂective learning, in the context of a particular study abroad experience

in Nepal, and how it relates to the learner.

Reﬂective Learning and Learning/Study Abroad

Study abroad programs often create novel learning experiences for participants.
The novelty of the experience, introducing new social, cultural, and psychological
assumptions, has the potential to foster theemergence of new perspectives that could
potentially impart multiple directions and extend the frontiers of what previously deﬁned
the parameters of participants learning and knowledge (Kauffman et al. 1992). As such,

reﬂective learning could be important to participants in their overall process of

understanding and making meaning of the learning process that engages their thinking on
this level (Dewey 1933; Mezirow, 1990) because of the potentially disorienting nature of
the experience. In essence, the assumptions that previously deﬁned what and how a
learner understands their reality can potentially be confronted. Brookﬁeld (1987),
describes these assumptions as, "self-evident rules about reality that we use to help seek
explanations, make judgements, or decide on various actions" (p. 44). Polyani (1962)
views these assumptions as being imperative to what he calls implicit personal
knowledge, or what we take as being given or self-evident. In confronting these
assumptions, learners may potentially engage in means through which to reinterpret or
adjust these assumptions. This study explores this phenomenon in relation to the context
of a study abroad program in Nepal, with the assumption that such an experience may
involve elements of disharmony or uncertainty, which then may trigger a process of
reﬂective learning for the learner participants of the program as they construct new
meaning from these experiences.

Sommer (1997) and Pusch (1997) claim that because it is an experience that is not
only deﬁned by the context of travelling to a new environment, but also by the learning
structure within which individuals are participating, the potential for reﬂective learning in
a study abroad experience is signiﬁcant. In a sense, the study abroad situation creates a
theme around which learning emerges and functions. Heﬂich & Iran-Nej ad (1995) argue
that this thematic aspect fosters good opportunities for reﬂective learning to occur.

Learning opportunities are best structured in a manner that recognizes the

dynamic and active aspects of learning by making them stimulating and attractive,

able to guide attention, interest and curiosity. This dynamic and active learning
environment takes place within the context of an overall theme, to which learning

activities can be reﬂectively related (Heﬂich & Iran-Nejad 1995, p. 13, from
Marsh & Iran Nejad, 1994).

The theme in this case is the Michigan State University Study Abroad Program in
Nepal, with a group of learners dynamically responding to various learning experiences
they have during the program.

Literature relating to learning through a study abroad experience has explored
learning results primarily in relation to participant expectations prior to the experience
and its effects on learning following the conclusion of the program (Pizzini, 1979;
Marion, 1980; Pyle, 1981; Carlson & Widaman, 1988; Opper, S., Teichler, U., Carlson,

J ., 1990; Burn, 1991; Kauffman, Martin, Weaver & Weaver, 1992). Additional studies
discuss participant perceptions of the experience following its conclusion (Sikkema &
Niyekawa-Howard, 1977; Opper et al., 1990; Laubscher, 1994). The former studies,
exploring expectations and impacts, have explored deﬁning demographics of participants
in understanding learning outcomes and success, as well as administrative factors that
may be inﬂuential on learner outcomes, and the differences in learning outcomes of
participants verses non-participants. The latter studies, exploring participant perceptions,
allow the voice of the participants to describe the perceived success of the learning
experience following its conclusion. Underlying most of these works are policy initiatives
which try to gain more control of who does, and should, participate, as well as to
determine how learning can be maximized for the participant.

Assumptions guiding these types of studies are that:

1) Outcomes can be controlled and predicted more accurately, and ensured to be

more effective, by understanding characteristics of participants, which can be

used in developing effective program designs;

2) Learner perspectives following the conclusion of the program provide useful

information regarding outcomes of the learning experience.

This study does not aim to counter these assumptions, but rather, the point of
departure is deﬁned differently. This study assumes that all participants are potential
reﬂective learners during the time of the experience, and assumes a learner-perspective
by allowing the voice of the learner, in the context of the learning environment, to
provide a description of the learning experience. In short, this study gives emphasis to
process, more than learned outcomes. In exploring the individual learner, this study
assumes the control and predictability of reﬂective learning to be situated within the
learner, during the time of the experience, and looks to explore this phenomenon at this

time.

Purpose of Study

The purpose of the study was to explore the reﬂective learning of participants in a
study abroad experience by allowing the voices of the learners to describe their
perceptions of this learning from their experiences during a study abroad program in

Nepal. Guiding this purpose were the following objectives:

Research Objectives
1) To explore the content of learner interview dialogues in understanding
reﬂective learning in relation to the present discourse surrounding the

phenomenon.

2) To explore the phenomenon of reﬂective learning over the extent of a

particular study abroad program in Nepal.

Context of the Study

As stated in the Purpose of Study, this study was conducted in the context of a
study abroad program in Nepal, offered by Michigan State University. From January 15
to April 1, 1999, a group of 31 undergraduate students from Michigan State University
participated in an eleven week learning experience in the Kingdom of Nepal. The

program is multidisciplinary, and is open to undergraduate students from all majors.

Nepal

Geographically situated on the northern edge of the Indian subcontinent, Nepal is
bound between two giant socio/cultural civilizations: India and China. Historically, Nepal
served as a signiﬁcant conduit through which the socio/cultural creations of these two
civilizations ﬂowed. Positioned as it was, the current Kingdom of Nepal assumed, as well
as recreated, some of the socio/cultural forces that informed these two civilizations.
Today, this is revealed in many ways, such as in the two great world religions: Hinduism
and Buddhism, which are interchangeably practiced by the populace in conjunction with
more traditional beliefs. Food, clothing, norms, values, and countless other socio/cultural
phenomenon have all been signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the ﬂow of ideas and peoples
between these two countries. Entire volumes of texts have and could discuss these factors
alone, but important to this study is how these extraordinary socio/cultural factors can be

signiﬁcant to a learner coming from the United States. Speciﬁcally, Nepal offers the

opportunity of living and learning in a place with a composite of social, cultural and
psychological norms that stand strikingly Opposed to much of the normative perspectives
that compose the social, cultural and psychological reality of many learners originating
from the US.

Some have argued that the greater degree of difference found between learning
experiences, the greater the overall emotional and intellectual shock will be to the learner.
(Sikkema & Niyekawa-Howard, 1977). This shock or dilemma is often cited as a key for
any learning to begin when it involves challenging basic assumptions that guide learning
(Dewey, 1933; Brookﬁeld, 1987; Mezirow, 1991; Jarvis, 1992).

Others place this in respect to the enculturation process of individuals within their
respective cultures, which is the way that determines how the perceptions of individuals
are shaped in respect to the world they live in, as well as how the group socially deﬁnes
and interacts with their environment to survive (Laubscher, 1994). Laubscher (1994)
states that the degree to which the differing perspectives caused by enculturation effects
the study abroad learner is in large part related to the difference in the two cultures. In an
obvious sense, Nepal and the United States are quite different in a myriad of
circumstances. It was with this in mind that prompted the exploration of reﬂective

learning with participants in the study abroad program.

Study Abroad Program in Nepal
The Study Abroad Program in Nepal has various academic components that
encourage learning about and gaining an understanding of Nepal, i.e. in regards to:

culture, society, governance, language, religion, natural resources, etc. Participants also

10

live with Nepalese families during the extent of the program. This opportunity increases
the exposure participants have to some particular social and cultural norms found in
Nepal and with particular groups of people.

The program is academically structured so that to receive credit, participants are
expected to meet basic program requirements and complete various assignments based
upon their learning. These assignments include:

1) Attending daily lectures at a host institution;

2) Completion of examinations based upon the material covered in the
lectures;

3) Participation in ﬁeld based activities;

4) Completion of reﬂection papers based upon two speciﬁc ﬁeld
experiences;

5) Recordings of daily observations in a journal and the writing of two

research papers on individually selected topics of interest.

In addition to these “basic” requirements, which constitutethe core curriculum,
participants are required to complete two research papers on particular topics of interest.
These papers are intended for the fulﬁllment of additional academic credits for which
participants much register to participate in the program. Combined, these various
components are intended to provide a holistic, multifaceted learning experience for the
participants.

Participants spend eight weeks of the program in Pokhara, a major metropolitan

area of the country. During this time, participants attend daily lectures on academic

ll

topics, and participate in study-tours to different parts of the city and surrounding area.
The additional three weeks are spent on three separate weeklong study tours in the capital
city Kathmandu, a national park area, and a trekking conservation area. This format
constitutes the basic academic structure of the study abroad program in Nepal.

The uniqueness of studying and learning abroad, which is context dependent,
makes it necessary to understand that the learning that occurs cannot be separated
between program learning activities and experiences and those experiences that the
learner encounters in a non-formal setting. Thus living, as well as more organized
learning opportunities, was considered interdependent and integral in exploring the
reﬂective learning phenomenon for this study. In addition, the more general experiences
of the participants, both individually and in a group, were considered pertinent for

exploring this phenomenon.

Operational Definition of Terms
Reﬂective learning: the assessment or reassessment of assumptions guiding
perspectives through which knowledge is constructed that involves a process of
deep thought, both a looking backwards to the situation being pondered upon and

a projecting forward to the future.

Experience: program speciﬁc and non-formal experiences of the learner that are

relevant to their learning and reﬂective learning during the period of the study

abroad program in Nepal.

12

Understand: to grasp the meaning of the idea; to realize clearly and apprehend the

character or nature of the idea.

Constructivism: an epistemological position that deﬁnes the relationship between
knower and known as interdependent. In relation to learning, it posits that learners
construct knowledge themselves, both individually and socially constructing
meaning as they learn. There is no knowledge that exists independently from the

meaning that the learner attributes to the experience.

Qualitative Analysis: a nonmathematical process of interpretation, carried out for

the purpose of discovering concepts and relationships in raw data and then

organizing these into a theoretical explanatory scheme (Strauss & Carbon, 1998).

Michigan State University Study Abroad Program in Nepal: the program

occurring during the Spring, 1999 Semester.

l3

Chapter II

Review of Literature

Following is a review of the literature that was considered relevant for this study.
Three main areas of interest are explored:
1) Learning
2) Reﬂective Learning

3) Learning/Study Abroad

Each of these tOpics is explored separately. The literature presented in this section will be
critically reviewed in order to get a clearer understanding of the discourse surrounding
learning, reﬂective learning, and study abroad that is presently used in academic and
applied settings.

Beginning with learning, the review provides a brief historical development of
learning theories and how they relate to each other, and the perspectives that governed
their development. By exploring learning in general, a clearer idea of reﬂective learning
can be created by contrasting the two ideas. The review of literature pertaining to
reﬂective learning explores: the historical underpinnings of this idea; the more recent
development of the notion; how it relates to how we deﬁne learning; and what the central
focus of various learning strategies should explore. Finally, an exploration of literature
relating to learning/studying abroad is presented. This phenomenon, for the purpose of
this study, is also referenced as learning abroad, the two often used synonymously for this

type of experience. This brings together, along with the literature on learning and

14

reﬂective learning, the contextual base from which this study was grounded. Although
the reﬂective learning aspects of these study abroad experiences are related and discussed
in literature, both explicitly, and more implicitly in the cross-cultural learning objectives
that structure and inform these experiences, there was little literature found in exploring
this phenomenon in depth during the time of the experience. The exploration of the
literature provided the basis from which this study departed in exploring the phenomenon

of reﬂective learning.

Learning

Learning is conventionally deﬁned as change. Understandably, learning and
understanding how people learn is an idea under constant change and revision, as more is
learned about this phenomenon. Theories of learning are inextricably bound to
, epistemological assumptions that convey a perspective on the relationship between
knower and known, which in turn are in relation to ontological perspectives that describe
the nature of reality itself. Epistemological and ontological perspectives have changed
and developed in relation to the historical worldview perspective that predominated or
gained acceptance during a particular time and place. A worldview is often referred to
synonymously with a model, conceptual framework, meaning perspective or paradigm
(Mezirow, 1991). This worldview, paradigm, etc., is generally referred to as an accepted
model or pattern (Robinson, 1993). Kiseil (1982) deﬁnes a paradigm, in this context, as
"that which we look through rather than look at in viewing the world” (p. 95). It
confronts questions regarding such ideas as the human condition, whether or not there is
sin, what is considered beautiful, etc. (Lincoln, 1985). Maguire (1987) deﬁnes worldview

as a general perspective that is used to create a coherent picture of a complex reality. A

15

particular worldview is bound to the spiritual beliefs and basic principles through which
individuals function in a society. It essentially creates a perspective from which reality
can be interpreted (Maguire, 1987).

This continual ﬂux in world view, and the ontological and epistemological
perspectives embedded within them, has encouraged changing views on learning theory,
both in how learning is understood, in general, and to whom those theories should be
ascribed. Major trends in understanding learning theories, developed in relation to these
epistemological notions, have explored learning from differing perspectives ranging
from:

1) How a person's behavior changes in relation to what they have learned;

2) The mental schemata of the mind and its organization of what is
learned; and

3) Dialectical relationships between an individual and their learned

content/ experience.

All of these perspectives look to explore the process of learning and what it means to
learn. These general perspectives may respectively be referred to as behavioral, cognitive

and constructivisttheoretical views of learning.

Behaviorists
Origins of learning theory stem from a behaviorist perspective, which explained
the phenomenon as a stimulus-response relationship between the learner and learned.

Thorndike (1928) expounded the idea of trial and error learning or what he referred to as

16

connectionism, which falls within behavioral perspectives of learning. Simply stated, this
theory of learning explained a manner of behaving whereby a learner would repeat an act
when acquiring the desired results until a time when the same act would produce a result
in disharmony with the desired outcome.

Two other behaviorist theories of learning focus on the conditioning of that which
is learned. Pavlov (1927) propounded the notion of classical conditioning, while Skinner
(1971) developed the notion of operant conditioning. Both theories associate a
conditioned response to a reward from a stimulus. What is learned is conditioned on the
stimulus which elicits the appropriate change in behavior, thus alluding to something
learned.

Behaviorist learning theory is most often associated and conceptualized with the .
metaphor of learning as occurring like that of a machine. To stimulate the inert machine-
system to action, a stimulus is input into the system inducing a‘resultant action, thereby
indicating the success of the stimuli to the action of the machine. In relation to a theory of
learning, behaviorist View learning as that of a stimulus which produces the desired
behavior change, or learning. As for a learner she/he is viewed as a passive receptacle
into which new information should be placed. Essentially, behaviorists explain learning
with little to no attention given to mental processes of the individual (Wilhelmsen, S.,
Asmul Stein 1. & Meistad, O, 1998). Attention is given towards behavior change
inﬂuenced by the stimuli, rather than to the inﬂuences the individual may have on the
process. Cognitive psychologists would challenge this notion and posit a new perspective

in regards to how people learn.

17

Cognitivists

Cognitive learning theories place importance on the mental construction of the
mind and how the mental constructions one brings to the experience in part shapes what
is known or learned (Grabe & Grabe, 1998). Like behaviorists, cognitivists view
knowledge as absolute, and capable of being transmitted to a learner, yet include
psychological characteristics of the individuals mind as an important determinant of
learning.

Cognitive theories view knowledge as symbolic, mental constructions in the
minds of individuals. Cognitive psychologists refer to schemas (or schemata) as the
organized constructions of an event that individuals develop, and which serve to create
normative perspectives for what is expected by the individual (Mezirow, 1991). Learning
is a process of assimilating these symbolic representations to memory where they may be

processed.

Constructivists

A recent elaboration of cognitive learning ideas, constructivism, has extended the
process beyond exclusively focusing on the mental constructions of the mind, and posits
the engagement of the individual to what is learned as a process of constructing
knowledge and meaning.

A constructivist learning perspective posits a dialectical relationship between the
individual - learner - and reality - learning environment. Constructivism, as part of a
cognitive family tree, branches out in many directions with a rich history in philosophy,

psychology, and education (Mahoney, 1991). Although it has many roots in these areas of

18

interest, it has only recently emerged as a theory to describe learning. Some see its
beginnings in the works and writing of Immanual Kant. Kant (1965) viewed humans as
dynamically involved in the construction of their knowledge, not passive recipients of
information. This is facilitated through knowledge that is actively checked with
previously assimilated knowledge, after which a new, constructed interpretation is made
(Cheek, 1992).

Reality, or what is learned, is no longer an absolute entity, existing apart from the
person, but rather is part of process whereby it is constructed by the individuals. Reality,
or what is learned as reality, as posited by a constructivist perspective, is thus relative and
not absolute (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The (re) construction of reality, or what is learned,
recognizes that individuals have different (re) constructions, and thus there are potentially
multiple realities that can be learned. This contrasts with behavioral and some cognitive
perspectives, which view knowledge as absolute.

Much of constructivist learning theory stems from the work of Piaget (1950) and
is an extension of other work in cognitive psychology. Piaget viewed the mind as
containing 'a series of structures that over time are reorganized via new experience. The
brain tends to seek "equilibrium", yet new inputs continually challenge this state, forcing
change to occur to establish this state once more. Within these structures are units
referred to by Piaget as schemas (M011, 1990; Bereiter, 1994). It is these schemas that
become reconstructed as a person learns. Over time, and with additional experiences to
process, an individual reconstructs their reality, always tending towards a state of
equilibrium. The emphasis is on the changing quality of the learner and learned, rather

than the quantitative increases in information.

19

Adult Learning

Although much of Piaget's work was with children, constructivist notions of
learning have been inﬂuential on adult learning theory as well. Adult learning theory is
an emerging ﬁeld of learning theory that explores the similarities and differences guiding
the predominant assumptions regarding learning. The work of Eduard Lindeman (1926)
and later Malcolm Knowles (1980) gave insight into a new conceptualization of how
adults learn and the idea of adult learning. Lindeman challenged the notion that learning
and education was something reserved for the young, and saw the potentials for
education, and learning throughout adulthood, as signiﬁcant and important in
understanding the meaning people construct when learning. He formed a new
conceptualization around learning that looked to facilitate the meaning making of the
whole of life. The experience of the learner became foremost in importance and the
approach was based on situations relevant to the learner, not subjects and manifest
information (Lindeman, 1926).

Like Lindeman, Malcolm Knowles sought a new interpretation of learning,
speciﬁcally related to adult learning. Knowles confronted the basic assumptions that
premised pedagogical notions of learning. These pedagogical assumptions were
contrasted in relation to something Knowles referred to as Andragogy, which was
originally deﬁned as 'the art and science of helping adults learn (Knowles, 1980). Table 1
provides a contrasting view of the basic assumptions guiding these two theoretical

perspectives of learning.

20

Table 1: Pedagogy and Andragogy

About

Pedagogical

Andragogical

 

Concept of learner

Dependent personality

Increasingly self-directing

 

Role of learner's experience

To be built on more than
used as a resource

A rich resource for learning
to self and others

 

Readiness to learn

Uniform by age-level &
curriculum

Developing from life tasks
and problems

 

Orientation to learning

Subj ect-centered

Task-or problem-centered

 

Motivation

 

By external rewards and
o unishments

 

By internal incentive,
curiosit

 

(Adapted from Knowles, 1980, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy

to Andragogy.)

What emerged from this dialogue regarding pedagogy and Knowles concept of

andragogy, was a debate regarding the assumptions given towards learning, especially

how it contrasted between children and adults. The emphasis was on the self-directing

potential of adults. Knowles (1975) describes self-directed learning as "a process in

which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing

their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and other resources

for learning, choosing and implementing learning strategies, and evaluating learning

outcomes (p.18).

Knowles's ideas have been criticized on a variety of points (McKenzie, 1977;

Knox, 1977; Label, 1978; Knudson, 1979; Jarvis, 1983), one of which is the mutual

exclusivity of andragogy and its assumptions. Jarvis (1983) points out that these

21

assumptions are at times, and in certain circumstances, equally applicable to children.
Knowles would eventually respond to a variety of criticisms (Jarvis, 1983) and remark
that andragogy and pedagogy are not mutually exclusive, but part of a larger continuum
of learning that recognizes the learner and context as varying, and thus inclusive of both
ideas. .

The importance of the dialogue, regarding these two ideas, was the recognition
that learning should not be looked at in absolute terms, but that it works along a
continuum of assumptions and premises, which in turn guide the learning of the learner.
Although the cited criticisms demonstrate a degree to which Knowles failed to provide a
true picture of an adult learning theory, his ideas were important in generating a discourse
surrounding the phenomenon of adult learning and how it may contrast with previously
held assumptions regarding learning.

As a result of the interest spurred by contrasting views of learning, and adult
learning, others began to explore the concept to come to; a clearer theoretical
understanding. In Transforrnative Dimensions of Adult Learning (1991), Jack Mezirow
provides the basis of an adult learning theory under many of the premises of
constructivist ideas. Mezirow (1991) presents constructivist assumptions developed by
' Candy (1989) in directing his ideas of adult learning:

0 People participate in the construction of reality.

0 Construction occurs within a context that inﬂuences people.

0 Construction is a constant activity that focuses on change and novelty rather
than ﬁxed conditions.

0 Commonly accepted categories or understandings are socially constructed, not
derived from observation.

0 Given forms of understanding depend on the vicissitudes of social processes,
not on the empirical validity of the perspective.

0 Forms of negotiated understanding are integrally connected with other human
actrvrties.

22

o The subjects of research should be considered as "knowing" beings.

0 Locus of control resides within the subjects themselves, and complex behavior
is constructed purposefully.

- Human beings can attend to complex communications and organize complexity
rapidly.

0 Human interactions are based on intricate social roles, the rules governing
which are often implicit.

(Candy, 1989, p. 98)

Mezirow, along with other Constructivists, posit the importance of meaning
making in the learning process. "Meaning is an interpretation, and to make meaning is to
construct or interpret experience - in other words, to give it coherence" (Mezirow, 1991,
p. 34). Constructivists believe that individuals learn through their experience and that
meaning is rooted in that experience (Daley, 1999).

For contructivists, the learner is not an entirely passive receptacle, as behaviorists
would claim, nor is learning an exclusive ﬁrnction of the mental schema of the mind of
the learner, as cognitive learning theories suggest. Constructivist learning theory posits
that "learners actively construct and reconstruct knowledge out of their experience in the
world" (Kafai and Resnik, 1996). For Mezirow (1991), "Learning may be understood as
the process of using a prior interpretation to construe a new or a revised interpretation of
the meaning of one's experience in order to guide future action" (p. 12). Learning, as a
process, denotes a continuous action, dynamically changing from one level to the next.
This being said, learning is a complex process with a multitude of interacting variables
functioning to form an outcome. In viewing leaming as a process of making meaning,
this perspective introduces a notion that knowledge and meaning are constantly in ﬂux.
Checking the meaning or understanding an individual has, requires a process of learning

that involves the individual in a dialectical process of reconstruction. How one comes to

23

understand this meaning is presented next, by exploring the phenomenon of reﬂective

learning, and how it relates to learning in a general sense.

Reﬂective Learning

As a social phenomenon, learning typically tends toward social and cultural
reproduction, because that is how it is often deﬁned. Learning emphasizing this type of
reproduction is typically non—reﬂective, and may include such activities as memorization.
skills acquisition and preconscious learning (Jarvis, 1992). Reﬂective learning, however,
explores the potentials of learning that are antithetical to the social/cultural reproduction
that comes to deﬁne and direct a great deal of learning goals. Individuals often
unconsciously internalize these social and culturally prescribed goals. Mezirow (1991)
sees reﬂection as, "the intentional reassessment of prior learning to reestablish its validity
by identifying and correcting distortions in its content, process; or premises" (p. 15). This
reference alludes to the individual and the control they have in intemally assessing
learning, yet it is important to recall that this phenomenon of reﬂection and reﬂective
learning is inextricably bound in relation to the socio/cultural environment within which
the individual functions.

From a socio/cultural perspective, reﬂective learning provides the basis of a
theoretical critique of the growing propensity of a technocratic consciousness developed
through the spreading idealism of the scienticization of social life worlds (Outhwaite,
1994). Scienticization or scientism is deﬁned by Habermas (1968) as "science's belief in
itself: that is, the conviction that we can no longer understand science as one form of

possible knowledge, but rather must identify knowledge with science" (p. 4). In respect to

24

the growing presence of science and technology in modern times, society and its
individuals look to seek rational means through which to interpret the world (Weber,
1958). The scientiﬁc and technocratic consciousness is structured by longstanding
scientiﬁc beliefs grounded in positivistic interpretations of reality that posit an
epistemological position of an objective reality that can be explored, interpreted and
controlled. Peoples within modern societies eventually accept the legitimacy of the
science and technology, which leads to hegemony. Hegemony is deﬁned by FeenBurg
(1995) as a "form (of) domination so deeply rooted in social life that is seems natural to
those it dominates (p. 12). The rationalization of reality through scientiﬁc, technological
design is effective in entrenching modern hegemonies (Feenburg, 1995). This modern,
positivist position of interpreting reality began the departure of reﬂection from the
dialogue in regards to what we know (Outhwaite, 1994). Thus science, and the
knowledge and truths it produces, are legitimized by science itself, rather than allowing
an unbiased discourse to determine legitimacy of knowledge and truths.

In critique of this departure of reﬂection from the dialogue of knowledge, J urgen
Habermas (1968), in Knowledge and Human Interests. looked to demonstrate that the
scientiﬁc way of knowing is not the only valid form of knowing and knowledge (Welton.
1993). In exploring the creation and legitimization of knowledge, Habermas
distinguished between three types of knowledge: technical, communicative and

emancipatory. Table 2 presents these three types of knowledge.

25

Table2: Habermas's Knowledge Types

Knowledge Type Use of knowledge type

Technical

     

Prediction and control of peOple and
environment

    
   
   
     
      
  

 

Communicative Making meaning and the development of
understanding through consensus

 

 
   

Emancipatory Critical reﬂection on assumptions of ﬁrst

two knowledge types

 

 

(Adapted from Habennas' three types of knowledge, Habermas, 1971)

Technical knowledge is the base knowledge from which human seek to gain
control and predictability over their environment. In modern societies this is realized in
the form of positivistic assumptions of science.

Communicative interests serve to facilitate meaning making, and can be
inﬂuenced by ones lifeworld - culturally transmitted and linguistically organized
interpretations that symbolically prestructure the world of everyday life, learning - the
transforrnative potential of recognizing the means through which an individual constructs
their ideas, and social interaction, and the material reproduction of our social world
through interaction (Mezirow, 1991). Ideally, rational discourse should provide the forum
for developing and creating a situation suitable for communicative knowledge and
meaning to be formed, yet these are often unchecked in this type of discourse, and the
assumptions guiding the creation of them often go unchecked both by individuals and

society. Robinson (1993) describes these assumptions as "the rules of thumb that guide

26

our actions, the common sense beliefs and conventional wisdom that have been ratiﬁed
by our interpretations of experience" (p. 35).

The emancipatory component of knowledge alludes to the desires individuals
have for emancipation from domination. These are usually created and legitimized
through both technical and communicative knowledge. It is from this desire that the
potentials of reﬂection can be realized by individuals. Through confronting assumptions
that guide the ﬁrst two types of knowledge, the assumptions can be transformed or
reconceptualized by an individual or society (Habermas, 1968).

By elucidating these three different types of knowledge gained through learning,
Habermas provides a perspective on reﬂection, and how it can serve the interests of
learning and reﬂecting on the hegemonic tendencies of society, as well as psychological
and cultural barrier built up within an individual. As Habermas (1968) points out, to
disavow reﬂection is positivism (p. vii). By pointing our these tendencies of knowledge,
Habermas provided added insight for educators and learning theorist interested in
reﬂective learning. In particular to learning, his typology of knowledge demonstrates the
various forms of knowledge that can be created and reiﬁed both by society and the
individual. In regards to reﬂective learning, Habennas’ insights give credence to the

validating potential such learning can have.

The previous presentation on reﬂection and reﬂective learning was given to

provide the socio/cultural perspectives from which it arises. This relates to the

individual(s) in society, and how they construct their knowledge. These are inextricably

27

bound to each other. Following is a departure from this perspective, where the idea of
reﬂective learning is explored in greater depth.

Educators and learning theorists have attributed various degrees of signiﬁcance to
reﬂective learning (Dewey, 1955; Argyris, 1982; Schon, 1983; Kolb, 1984; Boud et al.,
1985; Brookﬁeld, 1987; Mezirow, 1990; Freire 1990). It is often referred concomitantly
as critical analysis, critical awareness, critical consciousness, critical reﬂection,
emancipatory learning, or perspective transformation (Robinson, 1993). Although the
works created by these individuals recognize the importance of the reﬂective component
of the learning process, some would argue that there is still a lack of attention given to the
function it serves in much of learning research. Some of this lack of attention has been
attributed to an unclear understanding of what the term denotes both in psychological and
common usage (Mezirow, 1991). Even so, there are many individuals within the ﬁeld of
education who have given considerable attention to the concept of reﬂection. Following

is a review of some of those individuals who have written about reﬂection and learning.

The educational philosopher John Dewey wrote extensively about reﬂection and
its relationship to experience and thought (Dewey, 1933, 1955). For Dewey, experience
was prominent in the connection to thought and learning. Through the dynamic process
of engaging in experience, individuals have the ability to reﬂect upon the situation they
are experiencing. This allows for movement past assumptions based upon rote
understanding, to a dynamic process of understanding through reﬂection upon
experience,

Thought or reﬂection, as we have already seen virtually if not explicitly, is the
discernment of the relation between what we try to do and what happens in

28

consequence. No experience having a meaning is possible without some element

of thought” (Dewey, 1955, p. 169).

For Dewey, reﬂection is the means through which insightful understanding and
learning from an experience can be achieved. And it needs to be done critically and with
the focus of reﬂection on the learning experience.

Experience as trying involves change, but change is meaningless transition

unless it is consciously connected with the return wave of consequences

which ﬂow from it. When an activity is continued into the undergoing of

consequences, when the change made by action is reﬂected back into a

change made in us, the mere ﬂux is loaded with signiﬁcance. We learn

something. (Dewey, 1955, p. 163)

In this sense it is a causal set of acts aimed at understanding that which is held in
uncertainty (Dewey, 1933). Through the employment of reﬂective thought, individuals
can proceed to “transform a situation in which there is experienced obscurity, doubt,
conﬂict, disturbance of some sort, into a situation that is clear, settled, harmonious"
(Dewey, l933,p.100-101). Thus for Dewey, reﬂection on our experiences propels the
mere experience into a cognitive construal of learning. He saw reﬂection involved with
experience and learning as forming a loop, where the two continually reinforced one

another through elucidating the relationships inferred through the experience (Boud et al.

1985)

In elaborating on the importance of experience and reﬂection in learning, Kolb’s
model for experiential learning (Kolb & Fry, 1975) was developed to show the important
role experience could have in a person’s learning (Figure 1). Kolb’s ideas on experiential
learning are recognized as important in the discourse of reﬂective learning because his

model links learning theory to practice (Lewis & Williams, 1994). This model contrasts

29

with learning models that place more emphasis on cognitive approaches to learning
(Boud, 1985) and thus are less involved with the actual experience of the learner. Kolb
looked to describe learning as a process through which knowledge is transformed through
experience.

Figure 1: Kolb's Model of Experiential Learning

Concrete experience

Testing implications of Observations and
concepts in new situations reﬂections

Formation of abstract
concepts and generalizations

(Adapted from Kolb, 1984)

The model generally demonstrates the process of experiences becoming transformed into
abstract concepts that latter can be applied to new experiences. It is a cyclical
representation, yet an individual can begin the learning process in this model at any point
(Jarvis, 1987). The model represents four stages in which individuals, through observing
and reﬂecting upon experience, conceptualize meaning from these observations and
reﬂections for application involving new experiences (Kolb & Fry, 1975). Ultimately,
this model relates the postulate that experience, which is not reﬂected upon. is learning,

which is unrealized (Lewis & Williams, 1994).

30

As Boud et al. (1985) indicates however, in Kolb’s model, little emphasis is
actually ascribed to the role reﬂection plays in the overall process. Although Kolb
generalizes the importance of each of the four aspects in his model:

1) concrete experience

2) reﬂective observation
3) conceptualization

4) active experimentation

and how learners, if they are to be effective, need the capacity to develop these abilities,
he does little to elaborate on the reﬂective component of the model, aside from including
the notion in the model itself (Bond, 1985). Jarvis (1983) also points out that the
emphasis in this model is on the experience and not the learner. Recognizing that learners
are different and bring to experiences different perceptions of phenomenon is important
in recognizing the dynamics of learning and learner (Jarvis, 1983).

Another model (Figure 2) that incorporates reﬂection into the process of learning
was developed by the authors of, The British Further Education Curriculum and
Development Unit (F EU, 1981).

This model represents three phases of the learning process:

1) The experience of the learner

2) The speciﬁc learning which occurs on the basis of that experience

3) The reﬂective activities which are needed to extract speciﬁc learning from the

overall experience.

31

Figure 2: FEU Experience and Reﬂection Model

 

Experience

 

 

 

 

Experience
existing and as extended
by company, college or

other agents

 

 

 

 

Reﬂection

 

 

 

 

Reﬂection
guided by tutor,
usually serving to
consolidate, interpret
and pattern; develop
concepts and theories
perceive attitudes and
values

 

 

Speciﬁc Learning

 

usually of skills and ¢ +
knowledge and
varying from
individual to
individual

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rather than a cyclical process in accordance with reﬂection, this model argues
that both instrumental, i.e. speciﬁc skills, etc., as well as learning through the use of
reﬂection can occur. However, there is little development of the notion of reﬂection
beyond pointing to its purposive nature (Boud, 1985).

Both of the models explained above represent interpretations of how reﬂection
can be incorporated into a process of learning. They both however give only marginal
attention to it as a critical element in ones learning experience, focusing more on the

experience itself as an integral part of learning.

David Boud and colleagues (1985) elaborate further on the idea of reﬂection and
its involvement with learning. In their discussions on reﬂective thought, they bring in a
number of factors indicative to reﬂective learning, which begin to create a clearer image
of what one means when talking about reﬂective learning (Jarvis, 1987).

Boud et a1. (1985) ﬁrst address the fact that reﬂection, as a part of the learning
process, is individual and personal, as well as purposeful process. They also describe it as
a complex process that involves emotive states such as ones feelings. (Boud et al., 1985).
Boud et al. (1985) developed their ideas into a model (Figure 3) that includes the
affective dimensions of learning involved in the actual experience.

Figure 3: Reﬂection and Learning Model

 
    
  

 
      
       
   

Returning to experience

  

New Perspectives
On experience
Change in behavior
Readiness for
application
Commitment to
action

- Utilizing positive
feelings

 
     
   
 

    
  

Behavior
Ideas
Feelings

     
    
 

- Removing
obstructing feelings

Re-evaluating

Experience Reﬂective Process Outcomes

(Adapted from Boud et al., 1985)

Bond et al. (1985) elucidate the interactive process that reﬂection and learning
embody. Their inﬂection of both affective and cognitive domains of thought (feelings,
behavior and ideas) point to the interdependency that these factors may have in
determining how one reﬂects on their learning. They center the aspect of reﬂective

learning within the individual as a purposeful process, as well as elevating the

33

idiosynchracies of the emotive learner when addressing experience and reﬂective
learning. This elevation of the individual adds to the complexity of reﬂective learning

attending to the emotive states of the individual, as well as to the experience itself.

The ideas and works of Paulo F reire (1982, 1990) also give credence to the notion
of reﬂection and its relation to one's learning (J arvis, I987). Freires’ work centered
around the efforts of education and learning for emancipating certain oppressed peoples
of Brazil, by developing within these peoples, the ability to critically reﬂect on their
social situation. He saw their oppression as part of their learning in that it was
internalized in a non-reﬂective manner. Freire, however, recognized other types of
learning, learning that incorporated reﬂection with problem posing education, which
sought to emancipate individuals from their oppression (Freire, 1990). It was this type of
learning, where individuals, as learners, have the ability to reﬂectively think and utilize
their creative abilities to their fullest potential in understanding their situations, which
F reire envisioned as the goal of education and the learning it espouses (Jarvis, 1987).

Important in understanding Freire’s ideas with reﬂection and education is the
importance he placed on action resulting from this newly developed creative thinking.

The insistence that the oppressed engage in reﬂection on their concrete

situation is not a call to armchair revolution. On the contrary, reﬂection —

true reﬂection — leads to action. On the other hand, when a situation calls

for action, that action will constitute an authentic praxis only if its

consequences become the object of critical reﬂection. In this sense, the

praxis is the new raison d’etre of the oppressed; and the revolution, which

inaugurates the historical momentof this raison d’etre, is not viable apart

from their concomitant involvement. Otherwise, action is pure activism.
(Freire, 1990, p. 52-53).

34

Freire‘s ideas about reﬂective learning fall within a larger sc0pe of his work,
which deals with a theory of education. He also focuses more exclusively on the social
phenomenon of oppression and the potential reﬂective learning has for deveIOping
"conscientization". In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1990), Freire deﬁnes conscientization
as "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action
against the oppressive elements of reality (p. 19). His ideas point to the powerful change
that can occur through critical reﬂection on one‘s situation. It can be envisioned as not
only emancipation from overt oppression but emancipation of the mind and how one

thinks and learns (Jarvis, 1985).

The adult learning theorist Jack Mezirow is another individual who has focused
his attentions towards the aspect of reﬂection and learning. Mezirow’s focus returns to
the individual, and the personal aspects of learning. Mezirow, in his analysis of reﬂection
and learning, developed a theory of reﬂectivity as a means to understand how individuals,
based upon the perspectives they bring to an experience, reﬂect upon the experience in
terms of their perceptions, thoughts and action (Mezirow, 1990 ).Thus he goes further in
elucidating upon the speciﬁc function reﬂection can have within the learning process,

particularly with adult learning .

Mezirow deﬁnes seven levels of reﬂectivity:
1. Reﬂectivity: an awareness of a speciﬁc perception, meaning, behavior or habit;
2. Affective reﬂectivity: awareness of how the individual feels about what is being

perceived, thought or acted upon.

35

3. Discriminant reﬂectivity: the assessment of the efﬁcacy of perception, thought,
action or habit;

4. Judgmental reﬂectivity: making and becoming aware of value judgements
about perception, thought, action or habit:

5. Conceptual reﬂectivity: self-reﬂection which might lead to a questioning of
whether good, bad or adequate concepts were employed for understanding or
judgement;

6. Psychic reﬂectivity: recognition of the habit of making percipient judgements
on the basis of limited information;

7. Theoretical reﬂectivity: awareness that the habit for percipient judgment or for
conceptual inadequacy lies in a set of taken for granted cultural or psychological
assumptions which explain personal experience less satisfactorily than another
perspective with more functional criteria for seeing, thinking or acting (Jarvis,

1987,p.91)

Mezirow’s particular interests are with the notion of critical reﬂection - the last

three levels of reﬂectivity - that pertains to a process of reﬂection most likely to occur in

adulthood. At this level, reﬂection engages the premises which guide assumptions, not

just the content and process of how situations are deﬁned for the individual. This usually

transpires due to a disorientating situation, where perspectives upon what one grounds

basic belief are conﬁonted. "Reﬂective learning involves assessment or reassessment of

assumptions." (Mezirow, 1991, p. 6). An individual reexamines these assumptions that

surround these beliefs and looks to gain meaning within the new parameters this

36

incidence has produced (Mezirow, 1994). For Mezirow, this reﬂection upon past
assumptions can be profound, leading an individual to the transformation of previous

beliefs to those incorporating new perspectives and meaning.

A review of both the idea of reﬂective learning itself, how it is socially conceived
and relevant, and how it has been expressed by various individuals within the ﬁeld of
education and learning demonstrates the signiﬁcant and "transformative" potential this
type of learning embodies. While Dewey’s ideas construct an overview of thought and
experience and the potential for individuals to reﬂect and learn from those experiences,
Kolb, the British Further Education Curriculum and Development Unit (BFECD), and
Boud et al. provide exclusive models of learning that attend to the experience of learning
and the importance of considering the individual respectively. Kolb's ideas introduce the
reﬂective element into a cyclical process attending to experience through transformation
that is facilitated through reﬂection and action. BF ECD model explored multiple types of
potential learning through experience. Boud et al. returned the focus back to the
individual and the emotive complexities that must be considered as interdependent with
the actual experience and the reﬂection that ensues.

Finally, Freire and Mezirow introduce reﬂection on a critical level. This critical
reﬂection is viewed as a part of transformative learning, which for Mezirow is directed
towards personal development, while for Freire is aimed at social change. Freiere
elucidates upon a theory of education that contrasts reﬂective and non-reﬂective learning,
while Mezirow looks acutely at the notion of reﬂection and the critical role it can play in

allowing transformation of meanings and thus of what an individual learns.

37

All of these views regarding reﬂection and reﬂective learning have been
incorporated in this section to provide some insight into the various ways in which it has
been interpreted as an element of learning. Although each stress different aspects of its
importance and potential for change, each has pr0pelled the discourse surrounding this
idea further. Following this path of learning is a discussion of just how reﬂection could ﬁt

into learning abroad.

Learning/Study Abroad
Much has been written about the potential beneﬁts a study abroad experience can

have for students participating in such programs (Sikkema & Niyekawa-Howard, 1977;
Goodwin & Nacht, 1988; Carlson, et al., 1990; Kauffrnann, et al., 1992). In Abroad and
new (1988), Goodwin & Nacht, examining study abroad programs from a variety of
different sized educational institutions, highlighted 10 educational and social goals of
various study abroad programs. These included:

0 increasing cultural experiences

0 creating multicultural individuals

- intemationalizing the educated citizenry

0 fulﬁllment of distinct institutional missions

o exploration of roots

0 mastering a foreign language

- exploring the world as a laboratory

0 to know oneself and ones nation in broader perspectives

o to learn from others

38

o to improve international relations

This list outlines a number of beneﬁts for this type of learning experience. Exactly how to
interpret, measure and understand what kind of meaning it has for the learners
participating, however, is often ambiguous, and has been an issue of contention for those
evaluating learning outcomes (Edwards 1987; Kauffman, et al., 1992; Sommer 1997).

Predominantly, literature relating to leaming/ study abroad has emphasized the
impacts such experiences have on learners (Kaﬂca, 1968; Rose, 1969; Morgan Jr., 1972,
1975; Bower, 1973; Duffy, 1976; Nash, 1976, Hensley & Sell, 1979; Pizzini, 1979;
Marion, 1980; Pyle, 1981; Carlson & Widaman, 1988). Laubscher (1994) points out that
the results of these types of studies are often "mixed" and "inconclusive". The overall
intent is to measure the effects of programs to determine proper policy and program
initiatives. Yet, Laubscher (1994) points out that these studies still lack continuity on the
effects on participants.

Study abroad is a branch of a larger international education paradigm.
Mestenhauser (1998) views the international educational paradigm to be in a period of
transition following the end of the Cold War. International education has the potential to
seek out important goals like improving quality of life and creating a more peaceful
understanding of the world.

Study abroad is often seen as a learning experience for broadening ones
awareness of the world (Keeton & Tate, 1978). By some it has been described as a type
of experiential learning. Experiential learning and its associated theory rely heavily on

the works of learning theorists like Dewey (1955) and others, as well as the ideas

39

stemming from deve10pmental psychology. Dewey maintained strong importance to the
ideas of learning through experience.

The nature of experience can be understood only by noting that it includes

an active and a passive element peculiarly combined. On the active hand,

experience is trying—a meaning which is made explicit in the connected

term experiment. On the passive, it is undergoing. When we experience

something we act upon it, we do something to it; something to the thing

and then it does something to us in return. Such is the peculiar

combination. The connection of these two phases of experience measures

the fruitfulness or value of the experience. Mere activity does not

constitute experience. It is dispersive, centrifugal, dissipating (Dewey,

1955, p.163).

However, as he elucidates further and others involved in study abroad have
reiterated, to have an experience is not necessarily to learn from something (Sommer
1997), “Experience as trying involves change, but change is meaningless transition unless
it is consciously connected with the return wave of consequences which ﬂow from it”
(Dewey, 1955, p.163).

Others have argued similarly that a study abroad experience, based upon
experiential learning ideas, brings learning from a passive state to an active one (Sikkema
& Niyekawa-Howard, 1977). A passive state is a level of learning that lacks any personal
involvement by the individual, and is bereft of any affective dimensions of learning. It is
claimed that this type of learning and understanding can be acquired without an
individual even leaving their home, and can be achieved by studying the literature,
history, religion, etc. of a particular culture (Sikkema & Niyekawa-Howard, 1977).
Active learning however involves the ego of the learner, and is achieved on the affective

level of learning. The difference between passive and active learning is that the former

understanding lies in the intellectual and rational understanding of the individual, while

40

the later lies in the affective understanding achieved.

In a historical perspective, the ideals of becoming world-cultured citizens has a
long standing tradition in the privileged classes of Westem-social-elite, whereby
traveling to different places of the world was a manner of acquainting the youth of these
groups with a better understanding of the arts, sights, and sounds of other peoples and
places (Goodwin & Nacht, 1988,p.10). These culturally learned citizens were to move
into the leadership roles of society, bringing a broadened multicultural perspective to
such ﬁelds as business, government, education, etc.

Today the ideals of globally aware citizens is partially expressed through the
efforts of programs organized through public institutions for study abroad in the United
States (Goodwin & Nacht, 1988; Carlson, Burn, Useem & Yachimowicz, 1990;
Kauffrnan et a1, 1992; Pusch, 1997; Sommer, 1997). Whereas in the past the
opportunities were bound within certain privileged sectors or society, a new perspective
involves a greater inclusiveness, guided by the democratization of educational
institutions, and subsequent opportunities for individuals from the middle class in the
United States (Goodwin & Nacht, 1988).

The interest and numbers of students participating in study abroad programs in the
United States has been increasing rapidly over the past few years, with as much as an
eleven percent increase occurring 1997/98, as reported in the Institute of International
Education, Open Doors Report (Davis, 1998). As a measure to accommodate the ever
increasing tendencies of a globally interdependent world, the potentials for study abroad
programs have been recognized as “. . .one of the most powerful tools available for

intemationalizing the curriculum in American colleges and universities” (Kauffman et al.,

41

1992,p.1)

Over the last few decades many institutions of higher learning in industrialized
countries have promoted c00peration with institutions from other countries in the
attempts to develop study abroad programs for their students. These programs have been
characterized by:

(1) Arrangements between two or more institutions of higher education

(2) Providing opportunities for students to study at one or more partner
institutions

(3) Comprising organizational and educational infrastructures aimed at
easing the mobility and promoting successful educational experiences
abroad

(4) Incorporating at least in part a component of the degree program in
which students are regularly enrolled at the home institution

(Wagner & Schnitzer, 1991).

The role reﬂective learning has in this whole process of exploration has been
addressed in a few studies (Laubscher, 1994, Sikkema & Niyekaw—Howard, 1977).
Although these studies have indicated the beneﬁts, and presence of such learning during
programs, the phenomenon has not been explored in depth.

In addition, Laubscher (1994) points out that the majority of study abroad studies
have been quantitative in nature, exploring effects, but there has been little done through
qualitative techniques. Furthermore, he adds that most studies have explored outcomes

rather than process. Although, Laubscher‘s work explores process in relating to how

42

students learn non-formally in study abroad programs, it explores this phenomenon after
the conclusion of programs.

This study looks to integrate the theoretical discussions regarding reﬂective
learning, with the applied learning experience of a study abroad program, in exploring
any signiﬁcant relations between them during the time of the experience. It therefore
explores process, at the time of the experience, using qualitative techniques to explore the

phenomenon of reﬂective learning for a study abroad program in Nepal.

43

Chapter III

Methodology

The purpose of this study was to explore reﬂective learning for persons
participating in a study abroad program in Nepal. Following is an account of the
naturalistic paradigm, which was used to guide this research, as well as an account of

grounded theory methodology, which was used to analyze and interpret the data.

Naturalistic Study

The research paradigm that structured the intent of this research is that of a
naturalistic inquiry described by Lincoln & Guba (1985). A naturalistic inquiry generally
seeks to describe human processes and to use descriptions of the participants as means for
understanding those processes. Naturalistic inquiry looks at the phenomenon in relation
to its natural context.

This study is a qualitative approach that seeks to understand reﬂective learning in
the context of the learning experience. Creswell (1998) deﬁnes qualitative research as "an
inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry
that explores a social or human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic
picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a
natural setting" (p. 15). The naturalistic paradigm, as a qualitative approach, guided this
study.

The ontological assumption of a naturalistic paradigm is that reality is

interdependent between subject and object, and the reality, as it is understood is a

44

construction between the knower and that which is known - Constructivism.
Constructivism is one of several post-positivist epistemologies (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994;
Guba & Lincoln, 1989) that challenge the principles guiding objective realism as a means
to interpret the world and to gain knowledge of it. Constructivists claim that what is
viewed as knowledge and truth is the result of one's individual or social perspective
(Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Knowledge of the social world is created through interaction,
and is not discovered as some distinct entity existing absolutely, in disjunction with the
knowing subject. Essentially, there is no "real world" existing apart from the human
activities that construct knowledge and truths (Gergen, 1988). What are taken to be self-
evident truths, are context-speciﬁc, socially constructed realities (Guba & Lincoln, 1989).
As such, Constructivists emphasize the importance of capturing individuals’ unique
realities and understanding particular meanings of social phenomena.

A constructivist perspective was developed in opposition to assumptions claiming
exclusive states of an objective or perceived reality. An objective assumption claims the
existence of a reality independent of the subject involved in that reality, which can be
explored and understood in isolation from the knowing subject. That is to say they are
exclusively distinct from one another. A perceived assumption posits the notion of
exploration and understanding of this reality, yet recognizes the incompleteness of the
inquiry. The object or phenomenon of inquiry is always bound to the limitations of the
perceiver, who can only understand a limited amount of the object or phenomenon at one
time. A constructionist position ﬁnds the notion of a reality to be explored as "dubious"

and maintains that there are multiple realities occurring simultaneously, and that these are

constructed in a dialectical process between an individual and the phenomenon being
explored. (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Lincoln & Guba (1985) articulate important axioms that a naturalistic inquiry
assumes. An axiom is a principle or rule (Bamhart, 1963), which in this case, is used to
guide a particular paradigm of exploring a phenomenon. These axioms can be contrasted
with axioms of a positivist paradigm to elucidate the philosophical differences.

A naturalistic paradigm assumes realities that are multiple, constructed, and
holistic verses a positivist paradigm that envisions a single reality that exists. Knower and
known are interactive, inseparable according to a naturalistic paradigm, while positivistic
inquiry assumes dualism - object and subject are distinct from each other - which allows
the researcher to remain independent from the object or phenomenon being studied. In a
naturalistic paradigm, time and context bound working hypotheses are possible, whereas
Operationally determined generalizations are the intended purpose of positivist inquiries.
That is to say they are exclusive of time and context and can be generalized to situations
that are consistent with the terms that have been used to deﬁne their context. The
naturalist paradigm assumes dynamic entities rather than dualistic. Causes and their
effects are assumed to be indistinguishable, while the positivist paradigm assumes there
are causes that have subsequent effects, and that they can be distinguished from one
another. Finally, the naturalist paradigm acknowledges that inquiry is value bound, while
the positivist paradigm assumes value free inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 37). By
elucidating these axioms, the naturalist paradigm establishes vastly different assumptions
that may guide the study as compared to a positivist inquiry. In this way, the naturalist

paradigm can be thought of as a post-positivist inquiry, one in which it seeks to succeed

46

the failings of positivist inquiry and redirect inquiry in a proactive manner (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985).

In addition to these guiding axioms, Lincoln & Guba (1985) identify fourteen
characteristics of naturalistic inquiry. These characteristics operationalize the naturalistic
inquiry through the guidance of the previously mentioned axioms.

1. Phenomena are studied within their natural setting. The ontological belief

is that realities are context bound and cannot be properly understood in isolation.

The act of observation inﬂuences what is observed therefore the best

understanding of the study should take place in the natural setting of the

phenomenon.

2. Human beings are the primary data gathering instruments. Human beings

bring adaptability to the complex reality that the paradigm assumes, and assures

the meaning of the interaction between the phenomenon and the environment, as
well as the interaction with the researcher, is understood.

3. Tacit knowledge is used as well as propositional knowledge for

determining the meaning of observed phenomenon. Intuition is a valued

knowledge source in addition to propositional knowledge.

4. Qualitative methods of data collection are used, such as interviews and

observations. Qualitative methods are claimed to be more adaptable in

understanding multiple realities and the many inﬂuences and values that are
determinant of it.

5. Purposive sampling is used for ﬁnding information rich cases. This

increases the data that may be discovered using grounded theory methodology.

47

6. Data is analyzed inductively. Inductive analysis, as opposed to deductive,
assumes that there will be a relationship between the investigator and
phenomenon. Inﬂuences, like values, are considered part of the analytic structure
and are not held as independent of the study. Inductively derived data also is more
likely to reﬂect multiple realities.

7. Theories emerge from and are grounded in data. Grounded theory (see
below) is the methodology of choice.

8. The research design emerges from the interaction of the inquirer and
phenomena of study. Emergent design is favored over an a priori design. This
design assumes interaction between the measuring instrument - investigator - and
the phenomenon. Assumptions made prior to the study would limit the potential
realities that exist. The naturalistic paradigm makes the assumption that the
environment is rich in data, and that the investigator cannot predict what will be
given in advance.

9. Negotiated outcomes. The investigator negotiates the emergent meaning with
the participants of the study.

10. Phenomena of study are described through the case study mode. Using a
case study, the investigator can represent multiple realities, as well as referring to
the interaction he has on the phenomenon.

11. Idiographic interpretations reﬂect the particulars of the case rather than .
law-like generalizations. Idiographic - pertaining to a particular case -
interpretations focus on the value of particular cases rather than the

generalizations that can be made from the ﬁndings. Context and the factors that

48

determine the nature of reality in the context are considered paramount in
understanding the phenomenon.

12. There is preference for tentative rather than broad application of the
ﬁndings. Because the naturalistic paradigm assumes multiple realities, and that
these realities are determined by the particular context and the interacting factors
within the context, broad application is generally thought to be inapplicable.

13. Focus determined boundaries. The parameters that deﬁne the study are
emergent from the study rather than predetermined.

14. Validity and reliability of the study are established through the special
criteria of trustworthiness. These characteristics contrast with the positivistic
paradigm that aims to demonstrate internal and external validity, reliability, and
objectivity. The naturalistic paradigm use credibility, transferability,
dependability, and conﬁrmability in establishing the trustworthiness of the study.

(Lincoln & Guba 1985, p. 39-43)

Rationale for a Naturalistic Study

This study was conducted in view of the above criteria and axioms for a
naturalistic study. The purpose of the study was to explore the reﬂective learning of
participants in a study abroad program in Nepal. In order to understand this phenomenon,
as it was occurring in the context of the learning experience, it was necessary to engage
the learners during the time of the experience, that is, in context. Because of this direct
engagement between the researcher and the learners during the experience itself, a

number of underlying assumptions of a naturalistic approach were apparent. Most

49

notably, data would be gathered by conducting interviews with learners participating in
the program. Thus, the researcher would be the primary data gathering instrument for the
study, a qualitative research method for data collection. The interviews served as a means
through which to gain an understanding of how learners understood and articulated the
meaning of their experience, which was under a constant process of construction.

In addition, this study approaches this phenomenon from a constructivist
perspective of reality. How truth or knowledge is constructed by individuals or groups
depends on their experiences and is inﬂuenced by the conditions of their lives (Hartsock,
1983; Smith, 1987; Gergen, 1988). The interview dialogue with the learners provided an
opportunity to explore their own understanding and meaning from the experience that
were a part of their perceived learning. Exploring the multiple perspectives that the
learners provided was important in understanding the complexity of the phenomenon of
reﬂective leaming. Because of these reasons, a naturalistic paradigm was used to guide
the overall framework of the study. Guided by this philosophical position, the study
proceeded to incorporate a grounded theory methodology as a means to interpret the
phenomenon of reﬂective learning as it occurred for the participants of the study abroad

program in Nepal.

Grounded Theory

The grounded theory methodology is a qualitative approach to research. Whereas
quantitative methods seek to predict, by explaining how and why something happened,
through the use of statistical procedures, qualitative research seeks to understand the

meaning or nature of an experience.

50

Qualitative methodologies allow the researcher to take an active role in the natural
setting of the study. Rather than assuming the role of expert, a qualitative study assumes
the researcher's role to be one in which the researcher attempts to gain a better
understanding of the meaning the individuals involved in the study bring to the
phenomenon (Creswell, 1998). The grounded theory methodology used for this study
allowed for this type of relationship and understanding to be deveIOped between the
researcher and the participants, and facilitated the interpretation of the data.

Strauss and Corbin (1998) refer to qualitative research as, ". . .a nonmathematical
process of interpretation, carried out for the purpose of discovering concepts and
relationships in raw data and then organizing these into a theoretical explanatory scheme"
(p. 11). They also point out that the grounded theory methodology is not an incorrigible
set of precepts to follow exactly, but rather a principle to be used creatively in the
understanding of an area of study. These principles can be used to both generate theory,
as well as develop useful descriptions and conceptual ordering of phenomenon. The
latter, that of developing useful descriptions of the conceptual ordering of reﬂective
learning, was consistent with the goals of this study to discover more about the concept of
reﬂective learning in the context of a study abroad program in Nepal.

A naturalistic inquiry favors inductive data analysis, characteristic six (see above),
using substantive theory that is grounded in data, characteristic seven (see above).
Substantive theories are speciﬁc to time and place. Strauss and Corbin (1998) describe
grounded theory as a methodology that inductively derives theory through a systematic
gathering and analysis of data. Theory, thus grounded in the data itself is more likely to

"resemble" the reality under investigation, as opposed to a conceptually determined

51

theory based on experience or speculation (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This opposition to a
priori theories is founded on the notion that theories should be " grounded" in the natural
context of the phenomenon, exploring the interactive social processes that are existent

(Creswell, 1998).

Rationale of Grounded Theory

Grounded theory methodology was. selected in order to probe the interview
responses of particular individuals in regards to their reﬂective learning and to examine
emergent concepts from the interview dialogue. Speciﬁcally, it was used to develop
descriptions and conceptual ordering of a phenomenon (i.e. reﬂective learning) by
allowing the guiding concepts to emerge from the data. Instead of approaching the study
with an a prior hypothesis to test the validity of the phenomenon in relation to a
hypothesis, the interest was in exploring and gaining a better understanding of the

phenomenon in the context of the experience.

Questions Guiding Study
The exploration of the objectives of the study was facilitated by the following guiding
questions that were explored with the learners in terms of their reﬂective learning:
1. What they were reﬂecting about?
2. The reasons for why they were reﬂecting on what they described - How did this
come to be?
3. The associations they made in reference to their reﬂections - What are the

possibilities?

4. The expectations of the learner in regards to their reﬂections and their learning
- What is the relevant meaning for them?

(Interpreted from Barer-Stein, T., 1987)

Stemming from these guiding questions, a speciﬁc protocol was deveIOped and
used during the interview (Appendix A). Participants were interviewed at the beginning,
week two and three, midpoint, week ﬁve and six, and conclusion, week ten and eleven of
the program. The interview questions were adjusted during the course of the program in
response to the emerging trends and interests of the interview dialogue, as they became

apparent (Appendix B).

Assumptions of the Study

Creswell (1998) points to the importance of the rhetorical assumptions of a
qualitative study as it pertains to the language and terms used. These terms can be
contrasted with those that typically guide a quantitative study, "Hence, instead of terms
such as internal validity, external validity, generalizability, and objectivity, the qualitative
researcher writing a case study may employ terms such as credibility, transferability,
dependability, and conﬁrmability " (Creswell, 1998, p. 77, from Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Along with these rhetorical assumptions, the following assumptions were made
in regards to this study:

1. The subjects would actually reﬂect upon their learning in this program.

2. The subjects participating in this program would describe their reﬂective .

learning.

53

3. The subjects would talk honestly about this process.
4. The study is speciﬁcally looked at a case example - Michigan State
Universities 1999 spring semester Study Abroad Program in Nepal - for

analysis.

An overriding assumption of this study is that it was necessary to recognize the
interaction between the participants and the researcher, and the meanings derived from
that interaction. That is to say that whatever meaning was derived from interviews and
observations involves both the participants and the researcher dynamically interpreting
different meaning structures through interaction. The researcher participated in the group,
and the dynamics and interactions that took place are part of the meaning that both the
participants and researcher constructed. Recognizing this, and acknowledging the
meanings and interpretations that result, is important when interpreting results.

An assumption guiding this inquiry was that the focus would be on the learner,
and their own perspectives of their experience. This focus presupposed that learners
would be characteristically distinct based upon their personal as well as social/cultural
histories. This presumption was assumed, yet not explored, as a functional factor in the

reﬂective learning of the learner.

Study Population and Data Sources
The data from the study were collected from interviews of the participants in the
study abroad program in Nepal offered through Michigan State University during the

1999 Spring semester. Of the 31 participants in the program, 29 agreed to participate, and

54

were interviewed. There were 10 men and 19 women participants. Pseudonyms were
used to protect the conﬁdentiality of the participants in the ﬁnal writing of the ﬁndings.

The participation was completely voluntary, and participants were told that they
could discontinue their participation at any time. One participant dropped out of the
study.

A series of three interviews were conducted with 23 of these 29. Again, these
were conducted in the beginning, mid-point, and conclusion of the program. Various
obstacles (sickness, absenteeism) prevented conducting all three interviews with the six
of the twenty-nine participants. With these six participants two interviews were
conducted. The analysis separated those who had three interviews with those with whom
onlytwo were conducted to maintain consistency in the overall analysis.

This study utilized a semi-standardized interview approach adopted by Berg
(1995). This approach uses an interview schedule or protocol to be explored during the
interview. The semi—standardized interview allows for topics to be explored in varying
order and to probe interviewees beyond the answers to the prepared questions. This is
contrasted with a standardized interview process, where participants are asked the same
questions in a systematic order (Bogdan & Bilken, 1992). Since the interest was in
exploring how participants understand and describe their reﬂective learning, the semi-
standardized interview was found most appropriate for this study.

Roughly speaking, interviews were conducted at the beginning, midpoint, and end
of the study abroad experience. Each interview lasted between 20-30 minutes depending
on the articulations of the interviewee. Some interviews were more interactive then

others, yet an attempt was made to create a comfortable dialogue between the interviewee

55

and the researcher so that interviewees were comfortable revealing their experiences.
Learners oﬁen described, or were asked to describe, a particular learning experience
while in Nepal. This helped put their understanding in relation to the context of their
present learning. These experiences were often contrasted with past knowledge and
experiences that learners had before participating in the study abroad experience.

The interviews were taped and later transcribed for use during analysis. The
interviews were considered the primary source of data. A ﬁeld journal was kept for
secondary information. Periodic reviews of participant journal entries and papers that
were completed for the course requirements were also perused.

Berg (1995) states that the use of an interview allows one to enter and explore
another's perspective. The researcher was actively engaged with the participants
throughout the extent of the program, which allowed for the establishment of trust to be
developed. The establishment of a trusting relationship between the researcher and
participants is a key to qualitative research studies (Berg, 1995; Creswell, 1998).

The use of interviews in exploring the perceived realities of the learner-
participants, and the grounded theory method used to interpret this phenomenon, remains
consistent with a constructivist perspective, which guided this study. This assumes that
all participants may not understand their experiences in the same way and that like-
worded questions may have different meaning to different participants. The semi-
standardized structure allows the voice of the participant to reveal his or her own
perspectives. Being too dependent on pre-structured questions would create a bias in
terms of what the researcher expected to hear. As Berg (1995) points out, the researcher

cannot be aware of all the necessary questions to ask in advance. The interview protocol

56

allowed for perspectives to remain focused, while still allowing for individual

perspectives to emerge.

Data Analysis
The analysis for this study followed two forms:
1) Exploring across case themes and categories (see Findings, Section
One)
2) Exploring within case themes and categories, and relating these across

case for comparison (see Findings, Section Two)

Objective one, exploring reﬂective learning across case, was done through the
analysis of all 29 interviews for the study, which correlates to Section One, Reﬂective
Learning Deconstructed, found in Chapter 4. These interview transcripts were analyzed
for key themes, and then later coded for the purpose of discovering major categories for
organizing the data into a typology.

The 23 participants who were interviewed three times during the course of the
study were considered for the within case analysis, which allowed for preserving whole
parts of participant dialogues, and were used for objective two. This analysis allowed for
the exploration of how participants perceived and constructed their knowledge and
learning over the course of the program, exploring both similarities and differences
between the learner participants along a continuum of learning, and which served to form
the deveIOpment of a typology of learners. The results of this analysis are presented in

Section Two of Findings.

57

In this study, the transcribed interview dialogue was used to explore major
themes. An exhaustive review of all interviews was conducted until it was determined
that all major themes had been discovered. These themes were reﬂective of the major
points of interest discussed by the participants - elements that were present in the
transcribed interviews in the form of verbatim - as well as implicit implications revealed
from the transcribed dialogue - interpretive reading of the symbolism or meaning
underlying the physical data (Berg, 1995). All interview transcripts were read through
two complete times. Those themes that were found in the ﬁrst reading were checked with
those found in the second reading of the interviews in ensuring that all possible themes
were found.

Open coding was then used to explore themes for major categories. Coding is
deﬁned by Strauss & Corbin (1998), " as the analytic processes through which data are
fractured, conceptualized, and integrated to form theory" (p. 3). The purpose of Open
coding is to open up the inquiry and to begin to explore what the information that has
been obtained may reveal, which allows for the organization of information and the
development of a coding scheme.

Open coding is the process of reviewing the data and arriving at initial categories
of analysis of the phenomenon. It pertains to the identiﬁcation of concepts and the
discovery of their properties and dimensions. These categories can be segmented further
to explore subcategories within them so as to understand the phenomenon to its' fullest
extent. Subcategories as stated by Strauss & Carbon (1998), "specify a category further
by denoting information such as when, where, why, and how a phenomenon is likely to

occur" (p. 1 19).

58

After general themes were gleaned from interview transcripts, the transcripts
were again reviewed in exploration of categories and subcategories within these general
themes. This was done sentence by sentence.

Once these were discovered, core categories were determined, which were
representative of the connections between categories and subcategories. This process is
referred to by Strauss and Carbon (1998) as axial coding, which is the process of relating
categories to their subcategories, termed axial, because coding occurs around the axis of a
category, linking categories at the level of prOperties and dimensions.

Representative portions of interview dialogues that were consistent with
categories and subcategories were gleaned from the interview dialogue transcripts. These
were arranged as a means to organize and conceptualize the data for eventual reporting in
Section One of the Findings.

For Section Two of the Findings, the 23 interview transcripts were reviewed in
their entirety, exploring major themes relative to learner proﬁles. Six representative
participants were gleaned for this review. These were used because they were
representative of the general continuum of learning that all participants represented, and
because their verbatim dialogue most explicitly and clearly revealed these
representations. Sections of the transcribed interview were presented and threaded
together with explanations revealing how these participants represented various levels of

the learning continuum.

Verification

Qualitative research achieves validity and reliability through a process of

59

veriﬁcation. Veriﬁcation described by Creswell (1998) is " a process that occurs
throughout the data collection, analysis, and report writing of a study and standards as
criteria imposed by the researcher and others after a study is completed" (p. 194).
Creswell (1998) describes eight veriﬁcation procedures used in qualitative study and
suggests the researcher employ at least two of them in any given study. The veriﬁcation
procedures employed in this study fall under the criteria of trustworthiness described by
Lincoln and Guba (1985). Two of these criteria, credibility and transferability, will be
used.

The criteria of credibility was employed by the following three techniques:

1) prolonged engagement in study context; persistent observation

2) external check, i.e. peer debrieﬁng

3) member checking

The researcher was actively involved with the participants throughout the eleven
weeks of the program. Interviews were conducted at convenient times for the
participants, usually at the place where they were living, and were in essence part of the
context of the overall experience. The researcher's presence during the extent of the
experience allowed for ongoing observations, as well as checking the interview dialogue
with the academic work and non-formal interactions of the participants. The prolonged
engagement with the participants of the study and persistent observations allowed for a
degree of validity to be established for this study.

A peer, who was in Nepal for part of the time of the study, was consulted for

reasons of checking and cross-checking observations and techniques used during the

60

study. This allowed for a critique of the research during the time of the study. The peer
was consulted regarding interview protocol questions in terms of clarity and
appropriateness. Changes were made based on suggestions made by the peer.

Member checking is described by Creswell (1998) as the process where "the
researcher solicits informants' views of the credibility of the ﬁndings and interpretations.
Upon completion of the program, and initial coding of the data, a sample of participants
was chosen to interpret the interpretation of interview transcripts and how these were
coded for analysis. These were referenced with one another and checked with the
consistency between the researcher's coding of the same data.

The criteria of transferability for this study was established as explained by Guba
& Lincoln (1989). This is accomplished by allowing participants to provide in depth
descriptions of their experiences and by providing a description of the context of the
study. This gives the reader a clear indication of both the particular context of the study,
as well as participant's descriptions of their experiences.

In addition to establishing the trustworthiness of the study, the criteria for
establishing authenticity will be employed as described by Guba & Lincoln (1989).
Authenticity ensures that participants’ constructions of the phenomenon have been
collected and represented accurately and will be ensured in this study by using the
criterion of fairness. Fairness was established by allowing all participant learners who so

desired to participate in the study.

61

Limitations of the Study

The study explored the reﬂective learning of learners participating in a study
abroad program in Nepal offered through Michigan State University. The ﬁndings are in
reference to this case, which limits the generalizability.

Some of the data used for this study was gathered by interviewing student
participants, whereby questions addressed their learning. This assumed that the subjects
who were interviewed were able to articulate and understand the process of reﬂective
learning in the context of their experience. Since it was necessary to avoid leading the
thoughts and answers of the learners in regards to the concept of reﬂective learning,
articulating the exact notion to them was avoided. If the question was explicitly stated,
the question itself may have prompted the reﬂection only at the time of the interview.
During some interviews, this lack of speciﬁcity led to ambiguous responses by the
learners, or a misunderstanding of the question. When this situation arose, adjustments
were made to the questions to make them less ambiguous (see Appendix A & B). This
ambiguity, and the confusion it caused when answering some questions, is important to
note.

A speciﬁc proﬁle of the learners would have provided more deﬁning
characteristics of their personal histories. This information would have supported how
differences in learner testimonies were reﬂective of these differing histories. By not
exploring deﬁning characteristics of the participants, this study is limited by the
immediate perceptions of the learner, and cannot be checked with other factors that might

determine these perceptions.

62

The member checking conducted for the study included two non-participants and
three participants of the program. Some differences in coding were existent between both,
the two groups, the group as a whole, and how the researcher coded the data.
Recognizing that some statements had different meanings, or multiple meanings that
were different from what was used in the ﬁnal analysis points to both the complexities of
the phenomenon and the differing interpretations that can exist between individuals. Still
this presents a limitation to the study.

Exploring differences in male and female reﬂective dialogue may have also
provided further insights into the explored phenomenon. The lack of attention given to

these potential differences or similarities is considered a limitation of the study.

63

Chapter IV

Findings

This chapter is divided into two main sections. The ﬁrst section, Reﬂective
Learning Deconstructed: Typology of Reﬂective Learning, presents salient categories
that emerged from the analysis of all learner interviews conducted during the study which
were used to develop a Typology of Reﬂective Learning. The four main categories that
guide the presentation of this section are 1) Focus of Reﬂection; 2) Means of Reﬂection;
3) Reﬂective Intent; 4) Inﬂuences on Reﬂection. These categories were used to organize
interview dialogue and were the basis for analysis in creating a Typology of Reﬂective
Learners, for Section Two.

Section Two, Reﬂective Learning Reconstructed: A Typology of Reﬂective
Learners, presents a number of different individual leamers and their interview dialogues,
which are representative of particulars of reﬂective learning along a given continuum of
learning. This analysis looks at the learner over the time of the program, and explores the
content of their interview dialogue, and the categories illuminated from the analysis in
Section One, as a means to elucidate and construct a picture of an individuals reﬂective
learning over time. These two perspectives present two different views, the ﬁrst, the
categorical content of reﬂective learner interviews as a Typology of Reﬂective Learning,
and the second, the leamer reﬂecting on their learning over the extent of the program,
developed as a Typology of Reﬂective Learners.

The intent of conducting the interviews was to explore the phenomenon of

reﬂective learning of learners participating in a study abroad program in Nepal. The study

64

was context dependent, thus the exploration accounted for the fact that living and
learning were inseparable. Learning was assumed to be a function of both personal and
academic experiences, and thus it was assumed that reﬂections would presumably
involve both of these aspects of the leamers' experiences. The respondents were both
learners in a traditional sense, attending lectures organized through the study as well as
"non-traditional" learners engaging in a new environment, actively seeking and reactively
responding to these experiences, while constructing meaning through the dialectical
relationship they developed through these experiences. As stated in Chapter III, the
epistemological position guiding this study assumes the existence of multiple realities for
each individual, and thus, these two distinct learning situations were considered existing
simultaneously and in relation to one another, and recognizes that individually,
participants may have varying perspectives on similar experiences. In other words, each
individual articulated experiences from these situations in their own unique existential

manner.

Section One. Reﬂective Learning Deconstructed: Typology of Reﬂective Learning

The interview dialogue revealed a number of core categories, relative to
reﬂective learning, which were developed as a Typology of Reﬂective Learning. The
core category types used for this typology were as follows:

0 Focus of Reﬂection

0 Means of Reﬂection

o Reﬂective Intent

0 Inﬂuences on Reﬂection (Table 3)

65

Table 3: Typology of Reﬂective Learning

Focus of Reﬂection Subject/content of dialogue

 

Means of Reﬂection Means sought to foster reﬂective learning

 

Reﬂective Intent Result/Action/Change from reﬂection

 

Inﬂuences on Reﬂection Variables affecting reﬂection both
articulated by Ieamer and implied through
dialogue

 

 

The Focus of Reﬂection category describes different foci of reﬂective thought that
was articulated by the learner. That is to say the subject of interest that was described.
This was often in the form of speciﬁc examples provided by the learner as representative
of their learning.

Means of Reﬂection refers to the mechanisms, situations, etc. that learners
actively pursued, or reactively responded to in reﬂecting on their learning.

Reﬂective Intent indicates any perceived result/action from ideas articulated
through the level of reﬂection or a perceived possibility of change that could result from
an experience, idea or concept that was learned.

Inﬂuence on Reﬂection category explores the implicit and explicit inﬂuences on
reﬂective learning of the learner.

The focus of reﬂection and means of reﬂection were the categories that
constituted the greatest majority of the interview dialogue with learners, and thus provide

the most salient ﬁndings for this study. All four, core categories, however, are explored

66

and are interdependent with one another. For instance, learners focusing on particular
interests related these experiences to past knowledge, which in turn was evident of the
intent that the learner revealed in using this newly acquired knowledge in making it
meaningful to their life. Similarly, the means through which learners reﬂected on their
experience were a function of the inﬂuences that were prevalent at the time — time itself
being an inﬂuence - which was often guided by their experience, a factor of their
reﬂective focus. The manifest continuity of typological categories was apparent while
developing these categories, and was a direct cause for the development of Section Two
of Findings. This section is an aggregate of categories, which attempts to address this
phenomenon in continuance. For the sake of this section however, these core categories
are dis-aggregated, and presented disparately so as to provide a clearer understanding of
the uniqueness of the typological core categories and how they related to the reﬂective

learning of the learner.

Core Category Type One: Focus. of Reﬂective Learning

The differences in reﬂective thought were demonstrated in the testimonies of the
learners, where different degrees of focus were saliently present. Three main foci were
discovered and these were broken down into categories of content, process and premise

reﬂection. These are presented together in Table 4.

Table 4: Focus of Reﬂective Learning

Category Relevance to Reﬂective .
Learnin

Talking about experiences-

     

Content Reﬂection o Relativity

      

67

past and present; explicit
emphasis on subject matter
of the experiences of the
learner

0 Holistic world view
0 Learning of Self

 

Process Reﬂection

Talking about perceptions
on learning process

Explicit references

- Relating present to past
knowledge/experiences

0 Dialogue with other
learners

0 Observations

Implicit traits

0 Revealed through
dialogue on how learners
related new and old
information and knowledge
to present knowledge

 

Premise Reﬂection

 

Talking about
psychological, social, or
cultural assumptions that
possibly inﬂuence learning

 

0 Western verses Easter
ideologies

0 Cultural parameters of
perception

o Assumptions about Self
and how one understands
Self concept

 

(Categories are developed from ideas presented by Mezirow (1991))

Content Reﬂection. Learners talked about a variety of subjects during their

interviews, a reﬂection of the ongoing circumstances that they were experiencing. As part

of a reﬂective process, many learners talked about relating their experiences to what they

had known prior to the experience. That is to say that they were comparing their

observations and experiences with their prior experiences and knowledge. At times this

was articulated in a manner that demonstrated a developing sense of relativity that guided

their perspectives:

68

But then I started to realize, if you really think about it, is that right and is my
culture or society better than Nepal's culture or society. It is just different and you
start to be able to compare and contrast and understand the differences and accept
them more.

It makes me think about how we do things back home and or how I do things
back home and comparing and contrasting. Asking myself why we do it this way
and the Nepalese do it this way. The differences that we have in common, there
are so many new ideas and different ways of seeing things, a lot of the same ways
of seeing things.

I think because it has been such an important experience and it has made me view
things differently than I normally do, so in the future there may be things that I
don't even realize that I'll be looking at through different eyes. Through eyes of a
person that has experienced a different culture and gone back to their own culture.
Now I'm just more aware of my biases and things that (pause) why I look at
things the way I do. Me and X were talking the other day that we are starting to
notice that when we came here just things like looking at the marriages and stuff,
how we thought it was so terrible. We couldn't understand it. But we were
comparing it to what we are used to in our society and now I'm starting to realize
that it is not necessarily better; our way of doing things isn't better or the right
way.

For some the level of comparison shifted from their life experiences preceding the
Nepal trip and incorporated experiences that they were having in Nepal. Learners were
able to reﬂect on initial perspectives of their overall experience and relate them to their
understanding of experiences and perspectives at later times in the program, as well as
recognize the change in the process of their learning over time.

We were able to draw comparisons even though our family is Gurung (Nepalese

ethnic group) here. They are different, ways of life in the hills for Gurung's, ways

of life here in town. You are able to get speciﬁc like that. We already had the

general background and things with which we are used to, we can go deeper.

If you stay in the culture long enough, almost all of those preconceived notions,

and things that you bring to the country are corrected or reformed or some kind of

adjective to describe it; reinvent it I guess.

I'm settling in a lot more to where I am'looking at things more realistically instead
of everything looking so new and awesome. Like when I ﬁrst got here I was like,

69

these people are so lucky, they live in this beautiful place and there is this and
that. Now I am like, a lot of people struggle and I am seeing mOre of the realistic
and bad side of what they have to go through and what they have to do.

Through reﬂecting on both their past knowledge and experiences preceding the
study abroad experience, and their early and later perspectives on their experiences and
learning in Nepal, learners developed a relativistic perspective on their personal
perspectives towards experiences, as well as commenting on the relative nature of society
and culture in reproducing their material reality. This developed sense of relativity was a
hallmark of reﬂective learning revealed in the interview dialogue of learners.

Another signiﬁcant tOpic of interest for many of the learners was the "holistic"
connections that they were making through the general experience of being in Nepal. In
this case the interview dialogue stressed the recognition of an interdependence of factors
that were seen to inform perceived realities of the learner:

...I think all around, Nepal has helped me become a better person and I feel

conﬁdent that when I go back to the United States I'm going to view things

completely differently and maybe in a more mature, holistic way.

It's more about an understanding-understanding the whole-you know, not just

understanding what we are being taught but why and maybe the connections

between it all.

...I think that I've been trying to make a lot of connections. Looking at one thing

and seeing how it connects to this and this and this. Just how it works into my life

maybe; Just all of it, it really got to feel comfortable, that base which has given
me an opportunity to look deeper into those things, or see how they relate to other
areas.

This sense of connection was developed over the whole of the program. Some

learners related both the connections they were making with knowledge and experiences

70

that were shaping their perspective on Nepal, and in exploring the greater social and
cultural connections between Nepal and other cultures and societies.

It is not like school where you can go back through your textbook and see

everything that you learned. It is something that you can't really test on, it is not

facts, it is not scientiﬁc, it is more in the context of your Self and the world and
how things process.

In the initial protocol of the interviews, questions regarding the Self, and how it
was being inﬂuenced through the reﬂective learning of the learner was not explored.
During the ﬁrst interview series this topic emerged as a potential area of focus for a large
number of the learners. Following this discovery, the question was later asked of the
learner if it was not addressed in their subsequent responses. Again, in many instances,
responses were given to questions that were not directly referenced. If this occurred the
questions were assumed answered and not asked again. The following excerpts from a
number of different learners reﬂect the focus of Self that many learners had by going
through this experience.

So you start thinking about your Self a lot and where you are and where you are

going. I think that just time away and being confronted with something that is

completely different, it makes you have to be yourself because there is nothing
that you can hide behind, because you don't know anything other than what you
are.

I think my ability to accept my self has increased (pause) understanding where I

come from and who I am and (to) know not totally, but some of the ways that I

form some of my opinions and thoughts, because I was able to step out of it and to

see other ways.

I think that I have been thinking about it (learning) more in terms of the

development of my Self and how I will change more than in a speciﬁc aspect of

the different subjects I'm supposed to be learning.

The experiences of learners were representative of both the cognitive and

affective dimensions of learning. The affective dimension was revealed when learners

71

talked about how experiences were affecting their Self-concept. This in turn was
perceived as an important aspect of their learning. Some learners expressed this
awareness with greater conﬁdence, while others were unsure of how to interpret the
effects.

I think that I am learning my Self, of course, but (pause) I'm sure that I am but I

don't know if I can tell you how I’m learning about my Self here. Everything just
shows me who you are and who I am here.

Regardless of how this understanding was expressed, the affects of the study abroad
experience were signiﬁcant in confronting learner's perspectives of their Self.

The content of the learning experiences was the most prevalent and consistent
reference during the interviews with the learners. Learners most often related the
experience to past knowledge and experiences that they had coming into the program.
Although, there were some exceptions to this perspective:

At our dinner last night he asked me if I had culture shock at all and I don't know,
I don't think I've had it at all because (pause) I don't know. I guess I kind of ﬁgure
that people live, and people survive and the methods are various, but I guess I've
just kind of come here and‘what you see is (pause) you accept it as that because
that is how it is. There is not, in this kind of general living basis, there is not really
this really strong right or wrong. I don't know how to explain that. I can't come
into someone's house and automatically be looking at the table and saying-oh, it is
not set up like it is at home-or looking in the bathroom and saying-oh, they don't
have a curtain for the shower.

It is not. I don't (pause) I haven't really compared it much with home at all
because I am here and I am not there, so I don't (pause) it is not really there for
me. ‘

For the most part however, the content of the experiences were seen as both a
practical means through which to substantiate learning, as well as a means through which

to develop and construct knew knowledge and meaning for the learner. Most revealing

72

was the effects this had on the learners developed sense of relativity, the holistic
connections they were developing. and their continued construal of their perspective of
their Self. From direct experiences they were having during the program in Nepal,
learners articulated a degree of reﬂective learning that related these experiences to pre-
program knowledge and experience as well as substantiating it with the experiences they
were having at various times during the program. Through this process, a greater
conceptual level of understanding and meaning was expressed, which indicated the

effects such reﬂective learning was having on the learners.

Process Reﬂection. In exploring reﬂective learning, part of the interest was in
exploring whether or not learners were reﬂecting on how they were learning through the
course of the study abroad experience in Nepal. This was revealed from the dialogue of
the interviews both implicitly and explicitly.

Implicitly learners related past experiences and ideas with new experiences and
ideas they were encountering during their study abroad. In this way it was a reﬂective
process of bringing their past to their present in exploring new ideas and experiences.

They've made us feel as comfortable and as welcome as we could be but it seems

like there are little instances where you draw the line between male and female

and that you don't do that in America.

We were talking and comparing that to the American situation and how it would

be such a sad situation, and so dramatic. But it was like, I asked my didi (sister)

about it and she said, well they need the money. She was like, it is sad but at the
same time it is how they can live the way they do. So after he left they just kind of
hung out and talked. It just didn't seem like that big of a deal. It was interesting.

Explicitly learners talked directly about their perspectives of how they were

learning. For some this was again the process of relating the past to the present, but

73

representative of the dialogue of these interviews, the learner explicitly talks about this
process in relation to their learning.

Right now of course it just seems like I compare everything to my daily routine in
America. Because that is a perspective that I've always understood that I've
always been taught, and I think in a lot of ways right now I'm trying to compare
what they do to the way we do it.

Right now I think that just by noticing the differences and comparing and
contrasting it is meaningful, because it makes me think about my home and the
American way of life. By comparing American life or my life with the lifestyle
here it is giving meaning to my life because it is making me question why I do
things the way I do at home. Maybe the larger picture of why my society is the
way it is at home.

So I think, deﬁnitely for the ﬁrst few days it was kind of like, okay, big eyes and
taking everything in and not really thinking about why or how everything worked.
It was pure observing and then after maybe ﬁve or six days I started to notice, I
started to put what I was seeing in Nepal, or to compare that to how life was in the
United States. Like kind of drawing more comparisons or noticing the contrasts.
Those started to become more apparent after a few days. Obviously it was very
different, but I started to notice little things like the family behavior and how I
think that peOple in Nepal sort of-how they perceive their lives.

The social process of learning was also talked about extensively by many
learners. This was seen as a process through which to facilitate an understanding of a
shared or exclusive experience of the leamer(s).

I see the interaction with the other people of the program is a good way to learn
because they always see it from a different perspective from myself, or slightly
different.

Deﬁnitely, just to understand how other peOple are feeling and what they are
learning, it gives me insight into some of the differences and similarities that I
have with everyone else.

...to talk with other students about what they are getting out of the trip, and how
they are feeling about something, it gives me more insight about what I am
getting out of the trip; a clearer idea of what I am getting and what they are not
and what we are getting the same.

74

Given the communication difﬁculties, many learners articulated the importance of
their observations in drawing understanding and meaning from their experiences. From
their immediate observations, learners sought understanding from their experiences, as
well as other means to validate their own impressions.

My learning is very observatory at this point, especially because today was our

ﬁrst class and so everything that I have learned up until this point has been

observing what has been going on around me and kind of sensory oriented: sight,
sound and smell. Not a didactic type of learning. Things that I have learned are
just the daily lifestyle, like with my own family and watching other people.

I can't really explain the way I think. I guess it is more the experience. I guess

usually I am observing. I don't really feel like I do anything special or think in a

particular way that would help, it is just whatever the situation. Because it all

seems to be different here, not the same rote memorization that I'm used to back
at MSU. Which is basically all it is, memorization. It's different because it is more
life experiences that I feel that I'm learning. Because there is nothing forced here
for memorization. The test even, it seems like you can talk about a lot of different
things about Nepal. That is how I'm used to Ieaming, and then there are typical
life experiences. Sometimes it is memorization a little bit, like talking with the
larnas. I tried to learn a lot there. There is a lot of questions and answer learning
and some observation with different ceremonies.

Understanding the process of how one learns is an important facet of reﬂective
learning. Many learners articulated a sense of this process, and how they were actively
going about this through their learned experiences. Learning is a dynamic, interactive
process, which was made evident through the dialogue of many of the learners. Through
social interaction with other learners and Nepalese, learners came to an understanding of
their learning, which was often preceded or related with a process of comparing past and
present experiences and knowledge. Evident from this understanding is the social and

personal aspect of reﬂective learning that occurred for many learners during the study

abroad experience.

75

The direct experiences of learners encouraged observation as a means for
understanding experiences, which was related by some as a part of the process of their
reﬂective learning. Being aware of their reality, making observations on what was
happening, and then ﬁnding means through which to substantiate their perspectives was
all a part of an ongoing process of reﬂective learning. Learner interview dialogue
revealed both the implicit and explicit actualities of understanding and facilitating their

reﬂective learning process.

Premise Reﬂection. A few learners talked about the psycho/social/cultural
assumptions that were perhaps having a functional relationship to their overall learning
through the experience. Those that mentioned this aspect articulated a sense of the
function these assumptions can have on the ways they came to understand their
experience. At this level of reﬂection, learners demonstrated a critical awareness that was
not as evident in the discourse that related the content of the experience or the process of
the learning. Following are some excerpts from interviews that relate this focus of
reﬂection:

To ask the questions in the right way and to know when not to ask them and when

it is appropriate to inquire (and) to come to this level of understanding about my

environment and my family and a social understanding and a cultural
understanding. And I'm kind of at this level right here, where it has come up and
hit me in the face and I'm on the same level, but it is a superﬁcial level.

...because I'm seeing more of how I view things and how the deﬁnitions that

shaped information and words and concepts that I've taken are really Western

inﬂuence. So I see that and I wonder how and what I've learned; questioning what

I've accepted as being Nepali and how much of that has been through our Western

parameters or inﬂuences.

I've come to a conclusion that you can't separate yourself from your culture
because it has such a huge impact on your life, who you are, your value systems

76

and your moral beliefs. It has affected my learning here by determining what I see
and how I identify things.

Western inﬂuence; viewed from Western parameters. And understanding that I

can't take that away and that if I recognize it, then that is what I have to do. I have

to recognize how I'm viewing it and what has forced me to identify.

Actively reﬂecting on the assumptions that inﬂuence Ieaming can be a powerful
means through which to transcend or substantiate these assumptions. Although only a
few learners talked about this in interviews, the presence of such thinking points to the
potential the experience can have for certain individuals. It is reﬂective learning that goes
to the core of what guides ones learning and the understanding and meaning they can
gain from an experience, a level that a few individuals explored during the study abroad
experience.

The above were the categories found signiﬁcant to the focus of reﬂection for
learners. Every learner articulated a focus of reﬂection on some level, either

incorporating one, two or all three foci into their interview dialogue.

Core Category Type Two: Means of Reﬂective Learning

Respondents were asked or talked about where they were discovering their
sources of learning. This in turn shaped both the content of their reﬂective learning as
well as facilitated the process through which it occurred. Four salient subcategories

emerged from these descriptions which are presented in Table 5.

77

Table 5: Means of Reﬂective Learning

    

.._________________________W
Relevance to Reﬂective .

Subcategories i

 

 

 

Learning
Activities Learning exercises Classroom/Program.-
involving writing, 0 Writing in journal
observing, listening that o Writing papers
facilitated reﬂective . Lectures
learning.
Personal:
0 Letters
- Emails
Self Reﬂecting OffOf prior 0 Internal dialogue
knowledge and how it 0 Writing in journal
related to their Self image
People Social interaction as a Two salient sources:
process of knowledge and
meaning construction. 1) Members of the learning
group
-perceived as a means
through which to gain novel
information, varied
opinions, and to provide a
reference through which to
check personal opinions and
perspectives l
2) Nepalese people-mostly
perceived as a good source
of information both through
verbal communication and
by observing behavior.
Provided a rich source of
affective knowledge for the
learner
Experience Relating past knowledge a Day to day experiences

 

and experiences to
situations experienced
during study abroad
experience

 

- observation
— social interaction

 

78

Activities Learners reﬂected on the importance and helpfulness of program
activities as a means through which they fostered their reﬂective learning. Writing in a
journal was the most often cited means through which reﬂective learning was fortuitously
facilitated. The following excerpts are pieces of interview dialogue that attest to the
journal as means of reﬂective learning.

Deﬁnitely, things like keeping a daily journal is good, just getting my thoughts

down on paper everyday, you know, this is what I did, not just for the learning

experience, but to look back on it too, and to learn in the future from it.

My journal (and) I've said it before too. Just being able to write and reﬂect on

things. I like to write, but I don't do it at home. Just in the feelings or the emotions

or something new that you are seeing that you don't underStand but then when you
can remove yourself and think about it and write it down, it changes and I think
about it more.

Yes, and writing in my journal is helpful too. I have to remember everything that

happened today and when I am doing that I can think about it again and I can

come back to it and have a more deep impression about it; what I did that day.

Less signiﬁcant than the journal, yet mentioned by some learners was the exercise
of writing in general. This was in reference to the papers that learners were composing
for the program, letters to home and emails. This was perceived as a good way to
synthesize the impressions the learner was having, and facilitated the construction of

meaning.

More so now, especially after writing a reﬂection paper, I think that really made
me think about what I was learning.

I think that getting my thoughts down on paper in my journal or sending emails
and letters to my friends is kind of a similar thing. Like just recognizing my
thoughts and trying to convey my experience to other people helps me clarify
what I am thinking.

Working on my papers has been bringing up a lot of things that I wasn't
consciously aware of at the time, but then thinking back and going over notes and

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thoughts, realizing that I've learned a great deal more than I was realizing on an
everyday basis.

For many learners, lectures served to substantiate and enhance their learning by
providing background information from which they could relate their direct experiences.
In this way it was seen by some as a positive supplement to their learning experiences.

It makes it a lot easier to learn when they teach you something (pause) you know
we have been having our lecturer who teaches us and then we go out and he
shows us the temples by example and I think that learning that way is so much
better.

Lately I have appreciated the lectures. At ﬁrst I really didn't. I think because at
ﬁrst I was so ancy to go out and see things. I didn't want to sit in a room.

So it is, for me it is kind of like a trade off and it is interesting and it is cool. Like
my individual stuff I can still do it while I am here and then still have the
classroom stuff to back it up and fall back on which is kind of cool. Not even fall
back on. It is proactive in the sense that it changes your view when you walk out
of the classroom armed with this knowledge that you didn't have before. Your
perspective and view of the world changes because you understand why that
temple is situated to the east or what that god means. Reactive because you have
questions in your mind that you carry around that you might carry around for a
month and then you have a lecture on it an poof, you know, it is great.

In other circumstances however, learners viewed lectures more negatively. in
relation to their experience Rather than supplementing their experience, some expressed
an opinion that they took away from what could be learned more actively in a direct
experience.

Yes, I think things that I've thought about are how awful the lectures are, and how
much more I would be learning if I wasn't in them. I don't know. I mean I learn
some, but our outside learning has been so much more valuable and more readily
absorbed. When you are talking with the people that is so real, whereas in the
atmosphere of the classroom you are either not there or you are forced to be there
mentally. Whereas when you are either outside of it, it is more interactive and
more (pause) it seems like it is more valuable outside.

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...I'm thinking about it but sometimes I wonder exactly what I am learning
because I know I'm going to school, and I'm trying to listen to the lectures, but
some just don't interest me whatsoever, and so I try to focus.

Learners recognized the importance that writing served in facilitating their
understanding and meaning making of their experiences and thoughts. In regards to their
reﬂective learning, these means were viewed with greater signiﬁcance than lectures or
classes. Although learners valued the information provided through lectures as a means to
substantiate their learning through experiences, many voiced a negative impression, and
found them to be counterproductivejand less signiﬁcant than the learning they could do
on the their own. As a means of constructing their own meaning and understanding,

writing in various forms served a signiﬁcant purpose of reﬂective learning for many

learners.

Self Many learners reﬂected on the importance of their Self in inﬂuencing their
learning. The overall experience became an impetus to examine ones Self, or to open up
to the possibilities that the experience could have on the perspectives the learner had of
their Self.

It is like being a new born baby, when you open your eyes for the ﬁrst time
everything is new, because it is all interesting, it is all sparkly and "glittery",
because you don't know what any of it is. It is not to that extent, but it is a very
similar feeling where it is like when you look around and everything is so new
and different from anything that you know or are used to. Everything that I do
everyday is my learning and the experience is become a part of who I am. It is not
like I have to force myself to learn, it just happens, so it makes it a lot more easier
and a lot more fun.

Like before I was writing in my journal and I was leaming things, and I knew I
was learning things but I really didn't know what; I couldn't make sense of it
enough to talk with myself about it. But now I can talk with myself because I
understand myself. I understand what I am learning and I think that I understand
my Self, most of the time.

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I'm thinking about it, but sometimes I wonder exactly what I am learning because

I know I'm going to school, and I'm trying to listen to the lectures, but some just

don't interest me whatsoever, and so I try to focus. In that situation I know that

I'm not learning, but at the same time when I'm not paying attention to the lecture

I'm focusing on myself, my inner Self, and so then I wonder if I'm growing as a

person. Just trying to ﬁgure out who I am. Which before I started I knew that I

didn't know anything about my Self, I kind of feel like I kind of had an idea and

then I realized I didn't have any idea who I was and wondered if I needed to know
who I was, and now I am just starting to feel really comfortable.

Ones own Self, as a means of reﬂective learning, was the most elusive means
revealed in the dialogue of the learners. However, the aspect of the Self was prevalent in
much of learner dialogue (Focus of Reﬂection). For some learners this was the most
signiﬁcant learning pursued by participating in the experience.

A huge majority of what I'm learning is about my Self and being introspective. I

don't know, it can be very overwhelming at times, because we are very full and

busy, but we learn a great deal about our tolerance level and patience; pretty much
every facet of life.

I think that I am learning my ability to accept my Self has increased.
Understanding where I come from and who I am and knowing not totally, but
some of the ways that I form some of my opinions and thoughts, because I was
able to step out of it and to see other ways.

Most learners, in talking of the reﬂective intent of their leaming talked about a

perceived, anticipated, or uncertain change in their Self in terms of both how they
perceive themselves to their environment and Others, and how Others would come to

perceive them. This process was both inﬂuenced and facilitated by the leamers' Self, a

signiﬁcant means of reﬂective learning for the learner.

People The reference to people as means to reﬂect and learn emerged from two

distinct sources: students and people of Nepal. The former, pertained to learners trying to

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understand the meaning of their experience through dialogue with other participants, and
it was perceived as more signiﬁcant than the later, in which learners articulated Nepalese
people as means to gain this type of meaningful understanding.

Like I remember our ﬁrst conversation and talking about that, like from the very
beginning I realized that I was learning the most from the people around me rather
than the teachers and I think that has carried through the whole program.

I think that a majority of it (learning) is coming from other students and not so
Self reﬂective in my journal. That probably helps more because you get more
opinions than just your own. It opens your mind to blind spots that maybe you had
about yourself; it forces you to confront issues that you don't want to and
sometimes that is the best way to learn because (pause) you can go down the easy
road or you can go down the hard road and usually you leam down the hard road
and that is facilitated better during group activities I think.

A lot of times I will experience something and not think I understand what is
going on with it at all, and then looking back and talking about it with friends,
which is probably the best way, getting a discussion going about it and hearing
what other people got out of it, you realize how much you got out of it that you
didn't even realize because you are talking about it.

Interactions with Nepalese was expressed as an important source of information
for the learner, but because of language barriers, the potential for exploring meaning
through dialogue with Nepalese was difﬁcult. In those instances when speaking English
was possible, learners expressed a greater focus on the meaning they were developing
from it, rather than that which was derived through the interaction, as opposed to the
former mentioned circumstance, which was inhibited through communication barriers.

Like how can I get the concept of fatalism from a book in the same way that I can

from that conversation? How can I understand that I'm talking with three high

caste Brahmins (Nepalese ethnic group) that have the opportunity to go to school
when I'm looking at the cook's-who cooked my chow-chow-kids run around and
there are ﬁve of them and they are not given the chance to go to school-That kind

of stuff is cool. It is really powerful, it is not just text on a page, it is a living
feeling.

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Our didi (sister) is getting, or I think that she is remembering a lot of English that
she learned in school because she has been talking to us a lot lately. And so it is
helpful for me to explain what I did in a day or something that happened or
something that. I think to hear and watch her reaction, and seeing how she reacts
and what she has to say.

That is more of the experience I think that I was looking for in the ﬁrst place, just
interacting with the people. Just getting a true sense of the country than more of a
typical tourist point of view. You will ﬁnd some of the most interesting kinds of
information in some of the most uncommon people.

And now I am talking with people. I stop running and I talk with people. That is
interesting. I think that from the experience of talking with people it kind of
empowers me, because it made me-that is kind of like it-like I was just so
overwhelmed with the neatness of talking with people when I am running that I
couldn't keep it inside, so I had to talk. I think that is exactly what happened. It is
kind of interesting, it all just started to make sense to me and it was so
overwhelming, what was going on around me that I started to understand it and
my body was comfortable with it.

It was previously mentioned that learners found other students to be helpful in
constructing their own personal understanding and meaning during the study abroad
experience. This was contrasted to more informative interactions between Nepalese and
learners in facilitating their understanding. Understanding for the learner was further
facilitated by the interaction with other students, as learners also perceived other
participants to be additional sources of valuable information, especially as it related to
individuals academic backgrounds.

It has been very beneﬁcial. Especially everyone having-even though there are a

lot of environmental majors, it is a pretty good mix of people, with different

interests both in and out of school. That has been really beneﬁcial. Just
backgrounds of students is varied so they are bringing those things into the
conversation and to the whole experience.

It's nice because everyone has different majors, there is a lot of resource

development majors, but everybody brings to the group different sorts of

information. The religion majors know more about religion, you know when you

are driving along they can point out stuff to you. Yes, so I think the group
educates each other.

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I also love being with all of these environmental people, because I love the
environment but I don't have very much hands on with it since it is not part of my
major.

Experience Finally, the actual experiences that learners were having were
perceived as signiﬁcant means through which reﬂective learning could occur. The
practicality and hands on nature of the learning was perceived as beneﬁcial to many in
terms of what was learned.

I think that I always knew that I learn well in any situation, but I feel I'm more
interested and more excited about learning in a situation like this where it is more
hands on and more experiential learning (pause) I feel I have more of an
understanding of something (pause) you see how it works actually into someone's
life and it isn't just this removed thing that happens. I can see how it ﬁts and how
it works and get ﬁrst hand information from someone who actually experienced it.

If you think of (pause) and I've just started to think about how Americans are so
individualistic and so selﬁsh, and that is good in the sense that, I mean obviously
individual expression is a big thing, and being able to do what you want to do and
that sort of thing, but I've just started to realize that we are so far removed from
the idea of community that we live around other people that can help us and that
we can share. And that is the thing that you can't, I mean I could read it out of a
book but it just really drives home the point when you see it.

Like I kind of learned that, and I kind of knew that but I kind of didn't. I was
always — I always wanted to do what I wanted and not really have to worry about
justifying it being - maybe I don't want to say right but just there are so many
ways to live life it is amazing how different and how variant they are from society
to society. I knew it, but I had never really experienced it, so I didn't think that I
ever really knew it. I could tell you it but I really didn't know what it meant, so
afﬁrrnation is a good word.

The experience, as means to facilitate reﬂective learning, attunes to the active aspect of
learning, which learners are afforded in such a learning experience. Through a dialectical

relationship with their experiences, learners can engage their reality in a meaningful

manner, and subsequently, some learners were able to draw meaningful learning from

' their experiences.

Core Category Type Three: Reﬂective Learning Intent

When discussing their experiences and reﬂective learning, learners were asked
about the meaning this had for them. It was only during the second series of interviews
that learners began to reﬂect more clearly on what, if any meaning, was found in their
experiences and learning. A number of categories were emergent from this discussion

and are presented in the Table 6.

Table 6: Reﬂective Learning Intent

Category _ Relevance to reﬂective learning

Anticipated impact

    

Anticipation of a new or revised view that
is articulated yet is predicated on the
conclusion of the program and return
home.

 
   
     
    
   

 

 

Uncertain impact Uncertainty of impact of learning from
program. Views the return to home, and
removal from context as important for

understanding meaning.

 
     

 
   
  

 

 
   
 

Perceived Impact-Attitude Articulation of a changed behavior from
Change/New Perspective experience that is not dependent on
conclusion of experience.

    

 

Anticipated Impact. Many of the respondents cemented on the impact their

experience would have on their lives subsequent to the experience. They forecasted a

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change that would result from participating in the program, and reﬂecting on the meaning
it had had on their life.

I guess that now that we are about to be leaving I'm thinking more about how
things are going to impact me when I'm done here. I think that I will be learning
new things even in the future, in a couple of years. Certain things that happened to
me here that will be impacting me still or inﬂuencing the way I see things.

So that is something that I will carry with me that was here before I came to
Nepal, but for some reason here it has worked itself out. Yes, deﬁnitely, I know
that I will because I feel it in my heart. I just know that it won't leave. And that is
a neat feeling because I know it is not going to and I learned it here, but I know
that I will keep learning as I leave here and it will deﬁnitely come with me.

I think that I will be much more compassionate to foreigners in America (pause) I
think that being a foreigner opens my eyes to-it helps being the foreigner and
helps broaden my view.

That is one thing that I've learned here, just the reﬂection part of it and gaining
more knowledge from it. Which when I get home, that is what Nepal is going to
be, one big reﬂection. I'm going to learn so much from that when I get home.
Uncertain Impact. Others learners related that the most signiﬁcant impressions
would be formed upon their return to the US where they would be able to reﬂect on the
experience as a whole. For these learners, the context of the experience kept the meaning
from being fully realized.
The biggest thing is going home. That is when you really realize how much you
have learned and changed here (pause) it is the little things like that, that I'm
going to have a hard time accepting until I get back into my Western shoes.
Going home I think that I will be really impacted by where Nepal left me and
what I've come back to. I think then it will be a profound impact and I will
recognize what my experience was and how it changed me and how my
perceptions of the world have changed because of it.
Some learners were confronted with the ambiguity the experience had left for

them. Although they felt they had learned from the study abroad experience,

understanding and relating how, at the time of the interview, was difﬁcult.

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So I've deﬁnitely thought about how this has affected me, and how what I've
learned has changed me or my outlook on life. I think that just goes along with the
closer to the program. It is kind of frustrating though, because I feel like when I
think about things like that, I don't know why, but you think that for a big life
experience you would have to reach some sort of conclusion. When I think about
what I've learned I feel like I should be able to say, okay, this is what I learned
and this is what happened to me when I went to Nepal, but the more I think about
it the more I realize that I have a hard time doing that. Because it is not like I was
going to reach some concrete answer. I think because I had never left the country
before that I thought, I'm going to Nepal, and getting away from my usual routine
and getting into a new environment, I'm going to learn so much and ﬁgure
something out about my life. And that isn't the case. I've learned so much but I
think what I'm starting to see now is that it is a never-ending process.

It is so hard to pick something out because there is so many different inﬂuences
that I don't know if I could know that I've changed in many ways. I can't really tell
you why or how, I can just tell you that I think I learned about a lot of things.

Perceived Impact. A few respondents noticed immediate impacts to their
perspective from certain experiences and attributed signiﬁcant enough meaning from the
experience that they felt they had learned something new or something new about
themselves. Here, the change was perceived to have already happened, without the need
to step out of the experience to realize the impacts.

It is something that I've lost in childhood or growing up, or somewhere along the

line. Because I know that I used to feel like this. Maybe it was going to college. I

don't know. But, just getting older and forgetting about enjoying life and having a
good day everyday, and not waking up with heavy weight on your shoulders with
something that you can't do anything about. So yes, it is deﬁnitely something that
I'm going to keep.

I think that everything here-like as far as mySelf I think that I've grown as a
person. I think that I've learned to be more open to new things.

There are a lot of times where the things I was worried about or stressed about
back in the states, it is just, ke garne (what to do). Identifying that no matter how
much I worry about something, how much can I really control. I think that has
increased my sanity or lowered my stress level.

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If you would have told me that elephants were put up like that-you can read it in a
book and you can become aware of it, but until you see it, or experience it, reality
doesn't hit; at least for me. That wow, that when you can actually see it and touch
it, it is a lot different than reading about it in the pages of a book. I think that it is
a lot more immediate learning. It doesn't have to be drilled into your head until
you are in 12th grade and you are like, oh, maybe there is mistreatment of animals,
but it can happen instantaneously when you are there.

By making meaning out of new experiences, learners reﬂectively learned about
what was experienced. Every learner perceived the effect or impacts differently. The
articulated meaning of the experiences also revealed some general similarities. This is
reﬂective of the idiosyncrasies every learner brings to an experience, and the social
process of coming to an understanding of the learning that occurs for the learner herself
and for the group of learners. Some experiences had an effect that was strong enough that
learners felt a change in their ideas at the moment of experience. Others anticipated the
effects of the learning that occurred during the experience to be revealed following their
return to the US. Still others felt that the return home would further elucidate the learning
that occurred. Regardless of the impact, making meaning out of the study abroad
experience was an ongoing process that was revealed over and over during the interviews

with learners.

Core Category Type Four: Inﬂuences on Reﬂective Learning
Respondents were asked if there were inﬂuences in determining what, why and
how they were reﬂectively learning from their experiences. From this direct question, as

well as from responses pertaining to other questions asked, three salient categories:

89

adaptation, time and communication, emerged from the data as relative to the inﬂuences

on reﬂective learning (Table 7).

Table 7: Inﬂuences on Reﬂective Learning

Category Relevance to Reﬂective Subcategories
Learnin ;

Adaptability

Degree of comfort learners
felt in new environment.

- Adapt
o Adapting
0 Adaptation

 

Function of content of
dialogue in regards to what
and how learners reﬂected
on their learning

Implicit

o Reﬂective discourse
during interview
conversation was a function
of the period when the
interview was done, i.e. 1",
2nd, 3rd interview

Explicit

0 Dialogue referencing the
importance of time in what
the learner was able to
understand and the meaning
that was articulated of their
experience

 

Communication

 

Importance of social
interaction in broadening
meaning and understanding

 

T wo groups:

- Learner to Ieamer
- Learner to Nepali

 

Adaptability Some learners described how the inﬂuence their ability to adapt to

their new situation had on their reﬂective learning. The learners initial adapting and

subsequent adaptation was described by some as a means to overcome the overwhelming

engagement that the new experience had for them through a process of becoming

90

comfortable and familiar with their environment and new perceptions stimulated by the
experiences within this environment.

...because my reaction to things has changed so much. When I got here, I don’t

know, I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t happy but I didn’t (pause) I was adjusting. And

I’m still adjusting but I’ve come to a comfortable sense where I no longer notice

that I think when I’m tired that (pause) man I can’t wait to get here (pause) I no

longer notice that I am thinking that.

I don't know, it was just a realization that I came to. Being so set in the ways that

you do things in Nepal, like you just adapt to the culture, and then all of the

sudden it was things that I embraced.

I’ve been here so long I’ve stopped thinking about how I feel, like how different it

is here compared to back home. I can now relate this to what I knew before, and it

is just, I don't know, I think that it has raised me that much more. I can't pin-point
one speciﬁc experience or one occurrence that brought this on, it is just kind of

(pause) I don't know I guess. It comes with being so adapted to it.

Interestingly, not all learners found their adapting to be beneﬁcial to their
learning. One learner found the opposite to be true. Although being able to adapt was
viewed as something positive, this ability to adapt and become familiar was viewed as a
detriment to the initial learning potential that was possible from being in a new and
stimulating situation.

I think that it is harder for me to learn now because I have spent ten weeks in

Nepal society and things just don't seem to be different anymore. I think that it is

good that I've adjusted well enough to that, but at the same time it is kind of a

draw back because I know there are things that I'm missing, that if it had been

weeks earlier in the program I would have seen.

Still, this was the exception, and most learners found the ability to become

comfortable in their environment as a means through which they could take their learning

to another level of comprehension and concentrate more fully on it.

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But it seems like the ﬁrst time we talked I was getting that base of j ust living in

Nepal, and now that I am comfortable with that it seems like something to build

on.

Through adapting and becoming comfortable, learners were able to notice and
learn new things. In regards to their reﬂective learning, it allowed them the ability to

understand and reﬂect on new and different experiences and ideas, while feeling

comfortable in their new environment.

Time Since the interviews with the learners were conducted over the course of
the eleven weeks of the program, there is an implicit inﬂuence of time on what learners
chose to discuss. This implicit function will be addressed and developed more fully in the
Section Two of this chapter, which explores the dialogue of individual learners. Of
importance to this section is the explicit recognition of time, which some learners
reﬂected upon during the interview. Most signiﬁcant were comments that revealed the
importance the conclusion of the program was having on their reﬂective learning.

I guess that now that we are about to be leaving I'm thinking more about how

things are going to impact me when I'm done here (pause) I think that I will be

learning new things even in the future, in a couple of years. Certain things that
happened to me here will be impacting me still or inﬂuencing me the way I see
things.

I think lately more than the rest of the program (thinking about learning) because

it is coming to an end, so being reﬂective on what I've learned and trying to make .

sense of the whole experience.

I think if the program was still going on for a year, if I wasn't going to be leaving

Nepal soon, and this was the ﬁrst of many semesters I would spend there, I don't

think that would be trying to say what has happened overall. So I deﬁnitely think '
it is the fact that it is coming to an end that I've been sort of synthesizing things.

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Although most learners found the length of time to have a positive effect on their
reﬂective learning, one student found the opposite to be true:

I don't think the meanings are as profound as they were before. Like before When

we would all get together and the didi's would have roti and tea for us, it was such

a good feeling that they would go through all of that trouble for us (pause) before

it was really nice, and I'm not saying that it is not nice now, because it is still nice

to know that they went through that much trouble, but it is almost now, I take it as
being a part of the whole process.

Some students found the time in Nepal to be so crucial to their understanding that
they made personal decisions to stay longer, revealing how they thought this would
inﬂuence their learning.

Right now I am feeling that I am taking a lot in and learning a lot, but it is so

bubbled in my head right now that I haven't had time to grasp it. Like today I just

decided that I am staying longer in Nepal, and one of the reasons is because I am
learning so much and I feel I need more time to iron it out.

Others felt the pressure of time and how it was not going to be enough for how
much deeper they were willing to take their learning.

I'm running out of time though. If we had a year I think things would open up

immensely.

Time played a big role in the reﬂective learning of the learner, and was directly
related to adaptation and communication inﬂuences. In coming to understand this
inﬂuence, learners both changed their focus to synthesize and evaluate their learning, as
well as determine what could be done to take advantage of the changes that occurred over

time in relation to their learning.

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Communication A small group of individuals explicitly recognized the
importance of communication in facilitating their learning. For most, observation was
predominant in constructing their understanding of direct experiences. This was due to
the inability to communicate in the native language, Nepali. While the limitations of
communication was evident when reviewing the reﬂective dialogue of the interviews,
only a few learners mentioned this as something they recognized. The communication
that was both recognized and utilized by learners in facilitating learning was done
amongst themselves, or with Nepalese with whom they could communicate. This reﬂects
an awareness that most participants had in understanding the importance of
communicating when trying to understand or make meaning from a new experience, yet
few related this to the limitations it was having on their direct experiences. Those that did
recognize it, reﬂected on the importance of being able to communicate in Nepali to

achieve a more satisfactory level of understanding and meaning from their experiences.

I guess once I get a little more ﬂuent in Nepali I'll be able to ask them questions. I
guess it is just sort of my own hypothesis you know, like I think that they perceive
themselves as a member of the group before they think of themselves as an
individual, but I've never really asked my didi (sister) that or anything. So I hope
to be able to communicate with them one on one instead of just thinking about,
you know, guessing how they act.

Yes, right now I think because I want to communicate with people (pause) if I can
understand the language I can understand their Self‘s much more deeply and
hopefully I can understand their culture better.

One thing that I deﬁnitely (have) been thinking about, that I feel has inhibited me
from learning as much as I could about Nepal, is the language. That I have barely
learned any Nepalese and that I really should have taken a lot more initiative to
learn it. Because I feel that with what people say to each other or to their children
or what they talk about is so important, and I am completely missing it.
Everything that I'm seeing is so visual. It is all in a physical context and in
relation to the book learning that I've had and in relation to what I see in my
house, but I feel that I'm missing a completely other world with what people talk
about. Just what their feelings are. Because language is such a huge part of people

94

and their world; their cosmology, what they feel is important with everything.
And I think that I'm missing that. So I feel that I won't be able to get a complete
picture of Nepal at all because of the language.

Being able to communicate is crucial in making meaning and learning in general.
Learners recognized both the potentials - as with other learners — and limitations -

language barriers - that communication posed to their reﬂective learning.

Summary

The preceding discussion was a general picture of the different core category
types, and the various categories within them that emerged from learner interviews and
which were used to inform the development of the Typology of Reﬂective Learning.
These core category types and their respective categories paint a picture of the
complexity of reﬂective learning, and illustrate the various factors that are a part of it.
Excerpts of interview dialogue were taken from the entire group that constitutes the case,
thus allowing for an exhaustive exploration of the potentials of reﬂective learning that
were present among the group. This deconstruction allowed for a more objective
understanding of reﬂective learning in the context of a study abroad experience in Nepal,
by allowing typological categories of importance to emerge from the words of those
actively participating in the learning experience. Following is a reconstruction of the
learner in relation to their reﬂective learning bringing the focus back to the context of the

learner in the experience.

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Section Two. Reﬂective Learning Reconstructed: A Typology of Reﬂective Learners

The following presents the reconstruction of reﬂective learning by exploring it in
relation to a number of distinctive individual learners. The reconstruction will involve
exploring the interview dialogue of their individual reﬂective learning experiences, over
the course of the study abroad experience. In discovering similarities and differences
between individual learners, the above section, which presented the deconstruction of
reﬂective learning, allowed for distinctions to be explored from the categories that
emerged from the data in developing a Typology of Reﬂective Learners for this section.
In reconstructing reﬂective learning through the learner, this section brings the individual
back from disparate categories accomplished through the deconstruction and reexamines
a more complete composite of reﬂective learning that occurred over the course of the
study abroad experience for particular individuals. These particular individuals represent
the Typology of Reﬂective Learners within the larger case of the group as a whole, and
serve to illustrate the more visible distinctions of a continuum of reﬂective learning, of
which all leamers were apart.

Exploring the interviews that were conducted at three different periods during the
study abroad experience facilitated the capacity and relevance of this reconstruction. The
function of time allowed an exploration of the pattern of change or non-change with the
reﬂective learning of individual learners. Following is a presentation of particular
individuals and the trends of their dialogue that serve to demonstrate the unique and

characteristic highlights of their reﬂective learning during the study abroad experience.

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Individual Learners:

Kevin Kevin represents one end of the continuum of reﬂective learning that was
evident from the interviews conducted with the group of learners participating in the
study abroad experience. From the very beginning Kevin's dialogue revealed a pervasive
sense of questioning, which came to direct the course of the three interviews. This
questioning would eventually lead to an exploration of the basic assumptions Kevin
understood as directing his perspectives of his study abroad experience.

The dialogue of the ﬁrst interview revealed a high degree of relativity in Kevin's
thinking coupled with a general degree of curiosity and questioning that reciprocated this
relative perspective.

I've really been questioning (pause) because so many things are different here

because of the way of life working, and less people work; just the father works.

And in our neighborhood they all work abroad, so there are a lot of peOple just

hanging out during the day where back in the states it is not so common. So it is

just wondering which way do you consider to be right, it really doesn't matter.

Like it is kind of, there is no right way in life, like everything is kind of open. To

people here this is the right way, for where we are from, our way is the right way

but there really isn't because there are so many differences.

I try to ask a lot of questions of different people because what something means to

one person doesn't mean that to someone else (pause), so I just try to ask a lot of

questions and be curious. And I've realized that there are some things that I can
ﬁgure out, just simple things, but then there are some things like, oh you are doing
that for this reason but maybe the reason that, or the thinking process that l have
is really Western and I don't realize it. I'm really not part of the society.

This last comment portends a thought process that Kevin continues to explore in
later interviews, yet with greater depth. In this statement, the questioning that is revealed
is that of exploring the assumptions that may be guiding his understanding of his

experience (i.e. a Western perspective). This is the characteristic trend, one of

questioning prior assumptions that may be inﬂuencing his learning perspective. Three

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weeks later, during the second interview, Kevin articulated a growing propensity in
questioning the assumptions that are in relationship to how he is perceiving his

experiences:

I kind of see the process of my thought has changed from (pause) my thought
process changed from (pause) like I was sitting in lecture and thinking, and I
would try to think of what was going on and try not to think of how to change it
by Western ideals, but how you could feasibly change it (pause) and I couldn't
think of anything. I couldn't think well, how do you get rid of the caste system or
why is the caste system so engrained within Nepal and I couldn't think (pause) I
couldn't understand why an untouchable would let themselves be an untouchable
and just kind of set up their shoe shop or whatever, why would they do that. And I
couldn't understand that it was just fatalism, that they thoroughly believed that
that was what they were there for this time and next time they many not be, or
they may be, or they may be something else. But this time around that is what
they are, and that is okay.

There is not that ﬁght or challenge of who you are or what you are, you just are.
And understanding that has allowed me to think (pause) I don't know what it has
allowed me to think, but it has allowed me to see the impact of fatalism. I think
we had a lecture on fatalism and I don't know if I stopped paying attention or I
missed it or what. I didn't hit me. So perspectives, different perspectives and
different vieWpoints have really helped me to understand the people and how I

reacted to it when I ﬁrst got here, because my reaction to things have changed so
much.

Although Kevin is not explicit in his questioning, his testimony reﬂects a growing
interest in a different level of thinking that guide other perceptions of his learned reality.
Through questioning and exploring the assumptions that potentially guide the reality of a
Nepali (e. g. and untouchable), Kevin brings into question his own reality and the things
that come to shape his perspectives and construction of it. This was facilitated by his
incorporation of a variety of perspectives that he viewed as helping to change his own.

Three weeks later, during the ﬁnal interview, Kevin immediately talked about the

growing sense he was developing in terms of understanding how the assumptions that

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had developed in his own culture were potentially shaping how he was able to perceive
the reality he was experiencing during the study abroad experience.

...I'm seeing more of how I view things and how the deﬁnitions that shape
information and words and concepts that I've taken are really Western inﬂuenced.
I look at that and I see that in religion, how in Eastern thought it is different.
There is almost like separate deﬁnitions to society because (of) how they
implement the religion and how much of a factor it is. What it means in the West
is very different, there is less connection to it, at least what I see. So I see that and
I begin to wonder how and what I've learned; questioning what I've accepted as
being Nepali and how much of that has been through our Western parameters or
inﬂuences. I've come to a conclusion that you can't separate yourself from your
culture because it has such a huge impact on your life, who you are, your value
systems and your moral beliefs. It has affected my learning here by determining
what I see and how I identify things.

. In relation to the second interview, Kevin takes a step towards further
conceptualizing his direct experience to the meaning it has in his general understanding
of how his perceptions and learning are inﬂuenced by his personal and cultural history.
His focus tends towards a critical understanding of the social, cultural and psychological
functions that serve in relationship to how he perceives his reality. It is this aspect that
marks the unique trend apparent in the interview dialogue of Kevin as he continues to
question these basic assumptions he has. As he remarked:

I don't think that my learning process has changed as a result of being here. How I
conceptualize and identify with them has changed, but (pause) I think it has
(changed). Because I've taken more time to understand what is going on and to try
to look at things from a different perspective. To try to ﬁgure out what is
important to the people and not what is important to me, or what I would presume
to be important to me. So I guess it has changed since I've been here, because my
ability to understand people and their interactions with each other has affected my
learning process by slowing it down and taking more time to ﬁnd what is going

on. Just trying to view every option or alternative, and understanding that most of
the time I can't see every alternative or every point of view.

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As a reﬂective learner, Kevin's dialogue represents a learner type that developed a
critical understanding of his socio/cultural assumptions, and how they inﬂuenced his
learning (i.e. premises that function in relation to his learning). In addition it revealed
how he reﬂected on his own process of learning, and how he perceived that process to
have changed through the length of his study abroad experience. As a reﬂective learner,
Kevin's dialogue is representative of a learner questioning the basic assumptions that
have and were shaping his perspectives, and the process of trying to come to a new

meaning from this process of reﬂective learning.

Gael Gael is situated on the other end of the continuum, where the reﬂective
focus tends to remain more exclusively on the content of her study abroad experience.
The predominance of content revealed in Gael's interview dialogue reﬂects a general
trend of focusing on the immediate information of her experiences and reﬂecting this

against her informed knowledge before participating in the study abroad experience.
During the ﬁrst interview Gael made reference to the importance of context in
understanding the content she is learning, and how it was through this dialectical
relationship that she felt her learning was optimally achieved.

...personally I get more out of (pause) even going hiking yesterday. It was a

holiday for us, but I learned so much and everything I do here I learn so much. It's

more like the hands on stuff. Like before the wedding yesterday, X went and
showed us a real typical Nepali home and he said that these (the houses the
students are staying in) aren't really typical. So we went through what they went
through and what their houses are made of and how they get their energy. I get
more out of that then religion classes sitting in the lecture room.

Gael revealed the importance of experience in substantiating her learning

perspective. It was through the process of comparison, a trend that almost every learner in

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the program would describe at some point, which Gael came to a better understanding of
her new experiences, through relating it to the knowledge and experiences she brought
with her.

I've been trying to go (pause) I went to both the Hindu and Buddhist wedding and
I'm really glad I did that because it allowed me to compare the two and see how
different they were from the US. The Buddhist wedding was really (pause) I
didn't like it at all. It was really sad. It was really casual and (pause) but the Hindu
wedding was more, it was exciting. They were playing music and dancing and it
seemed like everyone was happy. But I didn't like the Buddhist wedding; it was
sad.

The predominance of the experiential beneﬁts of the study abroad program were
again discussed by Gael during our second interview. Again, it was the content of her
experiences that constituted the majority of her reﬂective learning perspective.

I just don't get anything out of the lectures. I mean I get little bits of facts but it is
nothing that I can incorporate. They give me the basics, which we get from the
readings. That is what I've noticed, just how much I don't get. What am I trying to
say (pause) I guess it is how I am not leaming in the classroom, but in Chitwan
(pause) I didn't even learn in Chitwan when they gave some of the lectures, just
because the Nepali professors are really bland and their teaching style is so much
different then the United States. I can't stay attentive when they talk. I just
daydream, but when we are doing things, like hands on stuff, that is the only way
that I learn.

I know that I'm learning a lot (pause) I know the basics on the history and the
democracy, the political things going on in Nepal, and I guess that came from
class a little bit. But I think that I'm learning more of the family values and the
culture (pause), like when we were sitting by the ﬁre and just playing music. They
know when to stop here and relax and enjoy life. The American way of life is
going fast all of the time. That is an instance that I realized what I was learning,
the culture. I caught myself comparing the US and Nepal. But then lately, when I
came back (to Pokhara) I hated Nepal. That was kind of what my reﬂection paper
was about. I couldn't stand the ﬂies, the smell and when we stOpped along the
roadside with the bus drivers, I used the bathroom and I thought that I was going
to die. It was just one of those roadside restaurants. I hated that. Now I hate the
pollution, I hate the dogs, the horns and it is so hard because I know now that I
like the simple life, but I like the United States for all that we have. I think here
they have more heart, but in America we have more material things.

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By the time of our third interview the trend that Gael testimonies followed in the
two previous interviews remained much the same. The one difference is the relation that
time had on her perspective of her observations and perceptions of her manifest reality.
Gael reﬂected on her assumptions in a more questioning sense, being more critical in
how she accepted the presentation of the content of her experiences.

I started to think when the mother's group was dancing, I was trying to debate
whether that was a show for us or if it really was their culture. We kind of know
that it is their culture because they have done it in other places too. And when I
started comparing that with the Americans and how we don't have any culture, I
don't think, like I would never catch myself dancing around like that at home. I
think it is hard for Americans to do that because it is even hard for some of us to
get up there and dance with them. But then A was talking and she was saying that
Black's have a lot of culture in the US, but that is kind of true. I liked how all of
the women in Chomrung called us sister or didi, and I said something to A and
she said, "You know, Black's do that at home". And I never noticed that before
and they always have in our dorm rooms (pause) when I walk past a classroom at
night and it can be Friday night, and we could be going out to a party, and they
would be in a classroom learning songs and dancing. I'm pretty sure it is all
cultural and black heritage. I would never see any white kids doing that, I don't
think. So that kind of made me open my eyes that maybe culture is kind of
important and maybe Americans just kind of lack it. I think they do. So I learned
that this week.

It was during the ﬁnal interview that Gaels' dialogue revealed a degree of
questioning that was absent in the ﬁrst two interviews. Through questioning the
assumptions that she had in her direct experience in Nepal, and checking the validity of
her experience, Gael demonstrated that she was indeed gaining a greater
conceptualization of her experience. Her reﬂections on American culture, or lack there
of, in relation to the culture she perceived to be experiencing in Nepal, was indicative of
this development.

Well I think that in Nepal it seems like everyone is pretty much Nepalese or

(pause) I don't know, when I look at America (pause) I don't know, it kind of
puzzles me. Because everyone came from different countries in the beginning, so

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they came from different cultures, and it seems that there are so many different

cultures that maybe they just all got lost on the way over there, and then when

things started to get more developed, and there is more alternatives now a days,
why would we want to go out and sing and dance with a bunch of ﬁiends about
there religion or culture when they could go see a movie with a couple of pe0p1e.

I just don't think Americans do that. I don't know, maybe they do and I just don't

see it.

Throughout the study abroad experience, Gael's reﬂective dialogue is focused on
the content of her experiences. Although she begins to question her past knowledge and
experiences in relation to her present experiences, this is not developed beyond the
questioning itself. The process and assumptive premises that are prevalent in Kevin's
reﬂective dialogue are absent in interviews with Gael. Therefore, Gael represents a

reﬂective learner trend that is developed primarily through her experiences and the

content of those experiences.

Kevin and Gael represent the greater extremes of a continuum that characterize
the reﬂective learners that were revealed through interview dialogues during the study
abroad experience in Nepal. Falling at various spots along this continuum are the
remaining learners that participated in the experience. Following is a presentation of a
few of these learners, and an explanation of their characteristic trends that give an
indication of where they may fall upon this continuum. It is intended that these cases will
give a better picture of the multitude of perspectives and learning that were indicative of

this study abroad experience.

Mark Like Kevin, beginning with the ﬁrst interview, Mark's reﬂective dialogue

revealed a general focus on the relativity of his experience and how he was coming to

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understand these experiences by developing this perspective further. As opposed to
questioning things, Mark articulated an exploration of connections that he was hoping to
discover, continually trying to synthesize his learning experiences. This would be a
reoccurring topic of discussion when we would talk.

Deﬁnitely! I mean so many things here are done differently than how they are
done in America. Something as simple as not using utensils to eat. It just opens
your mind so much more. In America it seems a lot of times, this is the way that it
is, this is the way that everyone does everything, and I don't think a lot of people
understand that on the other side of the world things can be done completely
different. I've really (pause) what I've learned, it seems instinctual that I would
compare it to what I've already learned, what I've been taught my whole life.
Especially this ﬁrst week, with so many things that were different from my
Western upbringings. It's like I try to learn, I look at it (pause) more and more I've
been trying not to look at it from the Western eyes and I think that what it really
takes to truly understand how these peOpIe live or what, how and why they live. I
think that might be something that takes time just being here. This is really my
ﬁrst time away from America, away from Western culture. Right now of course it
just seems like I compare everything to my daily routine in America. Because that
is a perspective that I've always understood, I've always been taught and I think in
a lot of ways right now I'm trying to compare what they do to the way we do it.
But the direction I would like to head is to kind of get rid of that bias, because
there is an obvious bias that I have that (pause) I don't think it is very easy to get
rid of sometimes or remove yourself from. It's hard to tell right now, because I
have only been here for seven days, but that seems to be the way it's been so far.

More than questioning the experiences he was having, Mark was looking to see
how they could work into his own life. The dialogue points to how this, more than
anything else, is what Mark was hoping to achieve through the study abroad experience.

...gradually it just comes naturally, just being here. Maybe the longer I'm here the
more I lose, how would I say it, the more I become aware of, I'm trying to think of
the right way to say it, maybe the more I stray away from that label or that idea of
I'm from this place, I'm a foreigner here, you know what I mean? Instead now I
can say, instead of saying I'm an American, I come from America, I have to go
back to America, therefore I can't internalize what I see here, it seems that with a
lotof travelers, they go places and see it, but they don’t make it part of there life.
It's like it is almost like a novel idea and it seems that way with a lot of people
before I left. You know, oh you are going to Nepal, blah, blah, blah, and a lot of
people don't seem to realize that it is more than just going there and taking your
photographs and seeing what the people do. I would more like to internalize it and

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make it part of my life. Like some of the beliefs and the way things are here
because they seem so much closer to the way it should be, than the way we do
certain things in the West.

During the second interview, Mark talked more about the ongoing process of
incorporating his experiences in trying to develop a perspective that would be inclusive
of these experiences. Evident in these reﬂections is his articulations of the process
through which he perceives the inclusion of these experiences being facilitated. Again,
he talks about the connections he is seeking and ﬁnding through these experiences, and
how he perceives his perspectives to be affected by the connections he is making.

The learning just kind of builds and builds. At ﬁrst you are exposed to all of these
new things, a different way of life and everything that goes with that. It seems day
to day that you build on that understanding, you have this basis of the way Nepali
life works, and it seems like everyday I kind of incorporate something else into
that. Even if it is learning a new phrase, leaming new language everyday, or
learning something else about our family or about Gurung culture, or whatever it
might be. But it seems like the ﬁrst time we talked I was getting that base of j ust
living in Nepal, and now that I am comfortable with that it seems like something
to build on.

I don't know, I think that I've been trying to make a lot of connections. Looking at
one thing and seeing how it connects to this and this and this. Just how it works
into my life maybe.

Just as far a poverty perception and my individual standpoint, I started to realize
(pause) I always thought of myself as living a pretty simple life, but then being
here and seeing how that works in, it is a lot more complex than I ever thought it
was. I think that just goes with the way you live in America. As far as making the
connection between I learned it in class and then I reﬂected on that, and just
walking down the street everyday, how I can have an impact without even
realizing how it works into it.

This ﬁnal statement alludes to Mark confronting some psychological assumptions

that inﬂuenced his perspectives and how this confronted his perception of his Self. This

105

indicates a reﬂective focus on basic premises that may be inﬂuencing Mark, but he does
not elaborate much beyond this one example.

When we got together for the last interview, Mark talked of the synthesis was
making in bringing to fruition the connections he talked about in the ﬁrst two interviews.

At ﬁrst, when I came here, it was sensory overload, so many things going through
your head everyday; just adapting. And slowly, as you integrate those things I
think I realize more now, about making connections as far as what has come from
what I've learned here and what I've learned from the ﬁrst 22 years of my life in
America. At one point, especially early on when I ﬁrst got here I had all of these
ideas about how the East is nothing like the West. It is the idea, all of these
different things. More and more, even listening to what X had to say today.
Everything seems to come back full circle. Where certain things are so different
back home, but in the same sense there are many similarities that you don't
realize.

I don't know, it was just a realization that I came to. Being so set in the ways that
you do things in Nepal, like you just adapt to the culture, and then all of the
sudden it was these things that I embraced. I can relate this to what I knew before,
and it is just, I don't know, I think that it has raised me that much more. I can't
pin-point one speciﬁc experience or one occurrence that brought this on, it is just
kind of (pause) I don't know, I guess it just comes with being so adapted to it.
Getting into that ﬂow of the way things happen in Nepal, and then all of the
sudden it was like, wow, this is not as different as I thought it was. Obviously on
the surface, the West and the East are on opposite sides of the spectrum really, or
Nepal and America would be on opposite sides of the spectrum, but when you dig
a little bit more I notice a lot of the similarities too. It is both sides of the story.
There are many, many differences, but then there are also similarities there, it is
just a different context or a different level of something, but it is still there. I don't
know, maybe I'm starting to realize that it is that way.

In the end, Mark comes to an understanding of the connections he ﬁrst began to
explore in the beginning of the study abroad experience. Through reﬂecting on the
similarities and differences between his past experiences in America, and his new
understanding developed in Nepal, he articulated a developed sense of the connections

between the two, and the relativity that can be found when comparing both places.

Although there is a sense of understanding in regards to the degree to which his past

106

experiences and perspectives may have been shaping the assumptions he could make in
understanding his experiences in Nepal, Mark's dialogue fails to reveal this beyond a
basic level. More than anything, he talked about the connections he was seeking in
integrating his experiences into his own life. Through exploring the process of his
learning, and recognizing the importance that his past has on understanding his present
experiences, Mark falls closer to Kevin on the continuum, yet tends towards of trend of

looking for connections rather than questioning assumptions.

Gwyn The reﬂective dialogue of Gwyn is again, indicative of a pronounced focus
on the manifest experience and content of the learning during her study abroad
experience in Nepal. During the ﬁrst interview Gwyn talked about how helpful it was to
be in the actual experience, learning from it rather than an abstraction of it.

Just even from when we ﬁrst got here I thought that I learned so much more from
actually seeing the people and stuff and watching. It made everything more real
for me. I'm excited to learn more about Nepal, like more so than when I was in the
US, because (pause) I mean I was excited to learn about it, but not as much as I
am now; like I really want to know about Nepal and all of the stuff we are going
to learn. I think when I leave I'll probably have learned a lot more about the
culture and the people than if I was at home, because it is all around us all of the
time.

Like many of the students, Gwyn compared her experiences in Nepal with that
which she had known and experienced in the past. Gwyn used this as base from which to
substantiate her learning.

...Like, I'm going to be studying environmental issues and stuff and I think that

maybe by being able to see the stuff (pause) I'm not sure what I'm going to study,

what topic I'm going to do, but if I do water quality, like the paper we got from
the professor. Like I could go visit places and actually see how it is different.

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Different than the way it is back home. One thing that I have noticed is that there
is a lot of trash around and it is dirty; not clean.

...I think that I have been comparing it quite a bit because that is the only basis
from which to come from; the stuff that I know with the stuff that I'm seeing. It is
hard to tell; it is hard for me to say.

During our second interview, Gwyn again focused on the signiﬁcance she
attributed to the content of her experiences, and how beneﬁcial it was for her
understanding. Through both her direct experiences, and by interacting with Nepalese,
Gwyn remained focused on how her interests and learning about them were facilitated
through these means.

More so now, especially after writing a reﬂection paper. I think that really made

me think about what I was learning. This week in Chitwan, that was nice to see

things. I get a lot out of the lectures, even though the days are long. I get more out
of them then I do in the lectures because it is kind of hard to pay attention during
the lectures at times.

I think I learn a lot from my didi, like asking her questions. She will sit and

explain to us for hours about stuff and she has visitors over a lot and they always

want to tell us about Nepal. I think that helped a lot too. I think I am learning a lot
not even in the classroom here. Just talking with people, because people seem
really open here to tell us things and they are always really interested in what we
are doing.

In talking with Gwyn about the meaning of her experiences and learning, she
found the new content stimulating, encouraging her curiosity and explorative intent, yet
she did not articulate a conceptualization beyond this point of curiosity. The following
excerpt from the second interview points to this:

I guess I can't think of anything off the top of my head right now. I guess there is

more religion here and I guess that is something that there isn't in the US. I don't

think there are as many religious traditions. Like Ama is always going to the
temple and there are a lot of superstitions. I don't know.

108

I guess maybe here I am just more Qiause) I'm trying to observe more I guess
(pause) what people do. Where as at home it is kind of like (pause) like when you
grow up (pause) when you grow up, you grow up a certain way in a culture and
you don't notice the stuff that you do everyday that seem normal to you but when
you come here and stuff is different. I can't think of anything exactly though.
Maybe I'm not always that observant at home. I don't really pay attention to that
kind of stuff. I just kind of accept it and let it go as being normal and not even
question it.
Gwyn brieﬂy explores the cultural assumptions that may be inﬂuential on her
perceptions. She recognizes that by not questioning those assumptions, she lacks

attention to them. This brief excerpt points to the development of a more questioning,

critical perspective, much like what was representative of Gaels' interview dialogue.

Our ﬁnal conversation reﬂected little difference in the patterns and directions of
Gwyn's thoughts about learning that were discussed in the ﬁrst two interviews. More than
anything she found the experience and the people an enriching way through which she
could learn more about Nepal

I think just asking questions. I learned a lot from my independent studies because

I could actually get out there and ﬁnd things out. Just talking through interviews.

A lot of people just like to tell you about Nepal, so there is so much information

that they want to share with you. From all of didi's friends that come over, they all

have things to say. Me and X went out with Y and his ﬁiends and we had
conversations about Nepal and he was talking about the economy. It was
interesting.

Like Gael, Gwyn was a learner that reﬂected signiﬁcantly on the content of her
learning experience. The novelty and hands on nature of study abroad experience made
her learning exciting and enriching, something that Gwyn thought could not be achieved

through learning the same content through a lecture, etc. Although she talked brieﬂy

about the differences in learning perspective and understanding that was developed by

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stepping outside of her previous perspectives developed in the US, she did not
conceptualize this beyond her initial impressions. As a reﬂective learner, Gwyn reﬂected

a trend of focusing primarily on content from beginning to end.

Andy Andy's interview dialogue represents another example of reﬂections falling
somewhere along the continuum that has been demarcated by the previous examples.
Like Kevin and Mark, Andy articulated a degree relativity that began from the ﬁrst time
we sat down and talked.

Everyday, throughout the day and at night when I ruminate and do my journal.
From the moment we stepped off the plane everything is a new experience, you
know what I mean. Some things are universal, but so much is new and it is a
constant learning process every minute of everyday when you are thinking this is
different from how we do it at home and this is something new and you are trying
to ﬁgure out how to act in situations; the situations are the same but how you
carry it out is different over here. So yes, I am constantly thinking about that.

Like not, not that it's, it is pretty easy to remember that this is not America, but to
remember that in America you are not the foreigner. Like I live in metro Detroit
and there are a lot of foreigners and a lot of people who do not speak English.
Like everyday when you go to the gas station and the family may have owned the
gas station for ﬁve years but he still doesn’t' speak English. It can be frustrating
but you ﬁgure I just want to get gas and go, but it makes you much more
sympathetic being over here and understanding that I can't (pause) if no one in
Nepal spoke English I would be in trouble for awhile because my Nepali is just
not up to par.

I guess just being open minded helps a good deal because you are able to be much
more receptive to the people and the culture. Just small everyday things like
taking your shoes off before going into someone's house. In most American
homes you just wipe them off and go in. Just small things like that: open
mindedness, receptivity; not trying to impose your world view on other people
and not so much thinking that this is entirely different than how I would do it back
home. Just saying this is how it is done and trying to ﬁnd out why it is done that
way. It is really beneﬁcial here too, that people seem very eager to answer
questions that you have rather than giving you a short answer and just blowing
you off. They will take time and talk with you and you will get the answer
eventually, which is much different than America in a lot of regards, in terms of
peOple taking time and having concern for someone they don't even know. You

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talk with someone on the street and they will be like (pause) I will have a question

about something and they will say here is the deal and then you will have this

understanding that you didn’t have before and I think that is really great that
people are that understanding over here.

In the second interview, Andy's reﬂections were indicative of a growing comfort
he had developed with the group, which in turn he perceived as a beneﬁt to his own
learning.

It offers different perspectives, which is good. Like the other day we were in

Lakeside, going over those sample questions for the exam. And your mind only

works in so many ways and you only have so many thoughts. But if you bring

ﬁve or six other people into it, that is hundreds of more views and takes on things
and people retain different information. So, you get different perspectives on it. It
helps you see things differently and gives you new things to ponder that you
wouldn't have thought of on your own.

Yes, I think so. I don't think that I utilized it as much as I do over here. I think that

this trip has impacted people differently. Although we go through the same

experiences, but still take different things out of them. Everyone gets impacted
differently.

Most learners viewed the social dynamics of the group as a whole, or within
varying smaller groups from the whole, as a positive inﬂuence on their learning. This was
viewed as a means to reﬂect through another on one's own perceptions. This phenomenon
developed over the length of the program, yet emerged as a signiﬁcant means for learners
to employ as a reﬂective exercise, around the time of the second interview, which were
conducted during the fourth and ﬁfth weeks of the program.

Andy's relative perspective that was revealed during our ﬁrst talk was again the
focus of much of his reﬂections when we met to talk the second time. This time he

referred to the importance of the Other - in this case, other students - in learning and

Ill

understanding ones' Self, and the perspectives he has in relation to them. This reference
seemed indicative of his reﬂective learning.

It is a different context to work within, with different thoughts and different points
of view. It could change your point of view if you see it in a different way. It has
been very beneﬁcial. Especially everyone having (pause) even though there are a
lot of environmental majors, it is a pretty good mix of people, with different
interests both in and out of school. That has been really beneﬁcial. Just
backgrounds of students is varied so they are bringing those things into the
conversation and to the whole experience. I think that is pretty cool and I
appreciate that.

For sure, I think that being in Nepal is going to affect me in the pace that I (pause)
the pace of life that I ascribe to so many things. Like back home, I move quickly.
A lot of students have been talking about this, and I'm not exactly sure why;
always rushing. The American pace of life is much faster than the Nepali culture,
but um (pause) always rushing from one thing to the next. Go from school to
lunch to school to a meeting to your apartment to work to dinner to homework to
bed and do the whole thing all over. You are constantly feeling pressed for time
and I think that once I am back home I am deﬁnitely slowing down, not so much
physically but mentally. To know that the world is not going to come to an end if
you don't get everything done on Monday. That things will get by and I think that
(pause) it is a lot about patience and understanding.

I always thought of myself as a pretty tolerant person and coming over here you
are like - oh my god, was I really being that tolerant back home - because you are
in a completely different culture. I think that it helps that so many people are able
to speak English. It hinders my learning of Nepali but it does help getting through
the day, especially the smaller stuff. I think that I will be much more
compassionate to the foreigners in America. I'm from metro Detroit and there are
a lot of foreigners in our area and so many of them own so many of the businesses
now. And a lot of them can't even speak English. So you go to get gas, you say-I
want ﬁve bucks on number four- and they are like what. It gets kind of frustrating,
like you just want to get your gas and go. Now you are the foreigner and you have
to put up with some things that aren't pleasant or are just different and can be a
hassle perhaps, so yeh, I think that being a foreigner opens my eyes to (pause) it
helps put me in the foreigners shoes and helps broaden my view.

During our ﬁnal discussion, Andy did not move beyond the relativity he referred
to in the previous two interviews. In the end, he found his experience to be enriching to

his life, giving him greater perspective to view himself upon his return home.

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I think that almost everything that I’ve learned over here is applicable to my life
outside of Nepal. It is not just for school or for the papers. It deﬁnitely impacted
me. There are a million things over here, religion, culture, the 100 subsets of both
of those, the sense of community that is over here and how that is perceived and
carried out by people. How people go through their lives, day to day here. Like a
lot of everyday living things have impacted me, given me a lot of food for
thought. It makes me think about how we do things back home or how I do things
back home and comparing and contrasting. Asking myself why we do it this way
and the Nepalese do it this way. The differences that we have in common, there
are so many new ideas and different ways of seeing things, a lot of the same ways
of seeing things.

Because his combined stability and depth of perspective, Andy falls along the
continuum somewhere in the middle. The relative perspective, which he brought into the
experience, is developed and enriched through his experiences in Nepal. This relativity is
attended in Andy's willingness to be open and to explore his new experiences, yet their
was little mention of the assumptions that guide his perceptions and the possible reason
for them existing. Thus Andy can be viewed as a reﬂective learner deﬁned through his

developed relative perspective.

Roy Roy is the last person that will be presented and discussed. Roy had traveled
extensively before beginning the study abroad program in Nepal, and the impressions
these travels had on his experience in Nepal are clear. His perspectives of learning, both
on what and how he learns, are evident from the dialogue and indicative of these past
experiences.

...are there questions about language later? Because the language (pause) I've

taken some French and some Spanish and the language is a little difﬁcult for me.

It is strange, like there are certain words when we do our Nepali language training

at the university, there are certain words that I know, by the sight of the object I

know what it is and that is because I can trace it back to having an experience

with S when she tells me what it is or like we were joking around with their 13
year old kid and dunga sticks out in my mind, like rocks, and we were looking at

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a picture book of Michigan (pause) dunga is also a player for Brazil, he is a
captain in Brazil so that was a connection and all his friends were laughing at me
because I brought that up. It is stuff like that. It is weird how stuff sticks in my
mind; you know what I mean. That is odd to me.

The same thing happens to me when I go to Mexico. I remember the ﬁrst time I
learned Beracho, like drunk and stuff like that, just situations I was in; it is kind of
cool. Other than that it has been vocabulary. It has been chaotic. I don't feel I have
time for reﬂection, and just time to chill out and think about my situation. It just
seems like I have to go with the ﬂow, like I am caught in this current right now
which is good because I am seeing (pause) getting a small dose of everything and
like understanding where Lakeside is and all of this other stuff.

Beginning with the ﬁrst interview, Roy talked about the importance of reﬂection
in terms of how he understands and makes meaning out of his experiences. His
impressions relate the individual and social aspects of reﬂective learning.

...I usually don't interact with the group as well as reﬂection is concerned,
especially a large group. I was going to say something yesterday but what I had to
say would have changed the tone of the supposed reﬂection meeting. I am more
into individual, just one to one. I like to probe and see what other people are
doing. Because yesterday I was going to bring up (pause) people were
complaining and talking about how they could structure the program better and I
wanted to talk about how I was kind of having a quiet time drinking my tea on the
back porch one morning, watching the sun come up, and my didi came down from
their shrine and she was walking around the house with incense, blessing the
house, and she came back around and she blessed me, and put a tika on me. Then
she sat down and we had tea for about twenty minutes and we talked about how
she felt so happy to have two boys instead of X, because we were healthy and we
eat and we are really easy to get along with and the kids are really happy because
we play with them all of the time. I said I felt I was in really good hands and that I
was blessed to be in a situation like this. That was like my high point and that is
what I wanted to say. I'm sure everybody had stuff like that, but it just wasn't that
type of meeting.

Later in the interview, Roy talked about his learning, which he perceived as not

only a process of coming to a new meaning for himself, but also the importance of

understanding the social/cultural historical dimensions that shaped the experiences be

114

was having. Roy was interested in taking his learning to a level where he could begin to
understand and make meaning beyond his own personal perspectives by incorporating the
historical signiﬁcance that constituted his experienced reality. He prefaced this with his

impressions regarding the dynamics of learning in this type of experience.

Because I have traveled by myself, it is anarchic. There is no structure, you are
free to do whatever and whenever you want within the constraints of the society.
And going out and seeking out learning is a conscious choice, a cool thing to do
as far as I'm concerned. I don't just want to know where the best restaurants are in
town, or where the best tourist places are in town, I want to know about why they
peel their fruit in a certain way or why they prepare their food in a certain way
and there is usually a religious context or a historical context.

During the second interview Roy articulated a developed perspective that
emerged during the ﬁrst interview. Through his increased experiences Roy's dialogue
reveals a process of continually pursuing an understanding of his perspectives in relation
to himself and to the social/cultural forces that exert their inﬂuence.

But that was a separate issue apart from the social and cultural learning that I'm
getting. Because even though the academic side may be a lot different that I'm
used to, just living with my family is an educational experience in itself. There are
different ways to dance and different song lyrics (pause) and I'm aware (pause) it
is almost like an out of body experience, especially because I get up in front of
people and dance. I don't know why I've been fulﬁlling that role, but it is almost
like an out of body experience because I see what I am doing and people watching
me and I look at the moves of the dancers around me and trying to ﬁgure out what
is going on. That can be a metaphor for how I sometimes feel walking around the
streets. I'm encountering new stuff and stuff is challenging me. Like today, when I
was playing volleyball, I learned how young men interact with one another. Like
how to lose in a ﬁiendly volleyball game in Nepali society. How to congratulate
somebody or how people embrace or touch or use their body language when they
want to express appreciation or to persuade you when they are upset. That type of
learning is very strange. It is really kind of cool. You don't choose for it to happen
to you, it just kind of happens. To be a ﬁsh out of water, to be an American in
Nepal (pause) I don't know, I get hit with a lot of stuff that is not academic, but I
can apply it to academics I suppose.

115

By reﬂecting on his experiences, Roy articulates a perspective of his Ieaming that
brings together his personal experiences with the knowledge he was gaining
academically. It is at this point in the experience that Roy realized both the potential and
limitations he faced in his experiences. The meaning of his experiences become increased
by the variability of situations he found himself within, but Roy also recognized the
barriers, like language, that impeded a more complete understanding.

I guess I'm recognizing it a little bit more, because that explains a little bit of how
I could talk about having an out of body experience. Not an out of body
experience but seeing myself doing things and seeing the directions that I'm going
in when I'm talking with somebody. Like making the effort (pause) this is really
hard, it is really hard once you get past tapai kosta cha (how are you) and tapai ko
nam ke ho (what is your name). Once you get past that, to go further into
conversation is an effort that I have to make, or have to make it. I can see myself
struggle, I can feel it. The silence between me and someone else for a while is
really weird. I try to get into what these people are about, (more) than I was four
weeks ago because you know, you wander around like a wide eyed six year old
for at least two weeks I think. At least I did. Sometimes my mouth is covered in
my shirt because the fumes are so bad in Kathmandu or Mahendrapul. Just to let it
soak into your brain before it can regain its' footing and retaliate. To try and
analyze the situation like a boxer or something.

By the time of the ﬁnal interview Roy remarks about his progress in learning.
Although he perceived greater control and understanding of his experiences, Roy
recognized other limitations, like the end of the program, which inevitably brought a
sense of conclusion and synthesis to his experience.

I feel more manipulative of my environment, whereas before I was kind of like a
sponge. I would soak it all in and then squeeze it back out through the ﬁlter and
try to reﬂect on it and make sense of it. But now I know more things so I can
facilitate or manipulate a situation, whichever way you want to say it, to give me
what I want; to satisfy my questions a little bit more deeply than they were before.
To ask the questions in the right way and to know when not to ask them and when
it is appropriate to inquire. It is kind of cool. I’m running out of time though. If
we had a year I think things would open up immensely. I was telling X that I feel
like I’ve been up here and I’ve been trying to come down to this level, or come up
to it, whichever way you want to say it because it makes me sound elitist, to come

116

down to this level of understanding about my environment and my family and a
social understanding and a cultural understanding. And I’m kind of at this level
right here, where it has come up and hit me in the face and I’m on the same level,
but it is a superﬁcial level, and it is just this surface or the tip of the iceberg or
whatever. And I just know it is starting to open up and show me what the real guts
of the culture and the society are. I have enough tools and I’ve sorted out enough
strategies to deal with that, and it is just starting to open up.

I’m seeing things that I never saw before and (pause) like I’m getting tuned in,
like when that girl was murdered in Arnar Singh Chowk I was really tuned in to
reactions and to pe0ples tempers, and what happened at my house. There was a
didi meeting that happened and all the things that were said. That was something
that I don’t think I would have recognized in the ﬁrst month here, and it is also
something that the community tries to isolate or tries to keep us isolated from,
because they don’t want a negative stigma placed on their culture or their
community either. It was blamed on a black, or an Indian, and apparently they
arrested four or ﬁve other people. It was just really interesting to here the theories
because ﬁrst it was a Jankri and then it was a Black Lama or a bad Lama and
before that it was an Indian. It still survives that it is an Indian ring, and I don’t
know if it is or not, but there is severe, severe racial prejudice in my family and I
think in the Gurung community and I would pretty much say everywhere in
Nepal. Those kind of things, that is the guts that is opening up. I mean you live in
America for three months as an exchange student, you might see how great it is
and how much material wealth we have, but you don’t understand the racial
tension or the psychological disorders that happens and stuff like that. But my
learning is changing and it has changed.

In the end, Roy summarized to what level his learning had progressed and to

where it could go, if devoid of various constraints. As a reﬂective learner, Roy

demonstrated an ability to go from content to process to social and cultural premises that

he was trying to uncover in order to understand his own experiences. Throughout the

three interviews Roy articulated a sense of his learning, and the means and mechanisms

he needed to develop in gaining more control over his environment, and thus his leaming.

It seemed indicative of an empowering level of learning. By taking as much control as

was possible, and being self—directed and motivated to search for understanding and

meaning, Roy carried his learning to the point where it could go within the constraints in

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the program. The meaning it had for him, as for every learner in the program, was
evident in his dialogue, and indicative of the powerful impact the study abroad program
had on his life.

But because we are at the end, you can feel it. I mean I’ve had a lot of
conversations about how difﬁcult it is to put this experience and our learning into
terms that anyone else that wasn’t here could understand. I feel the push, there is a
force, something forcing me to close down and parcel this learning experience
and put it in my brain, but you can’t because it is still teaching me. It is not
something, like if you were to go for a week in the Bahamas, the day that you
were getting on the plane or the day before you could pack it in your brain and
just go and it wouldn’t be a big deal, but this has affected so much of my life. My
philosophies and my learning and stuff like that, that I can’t (pause) it has forced a
new awareness I guess, you start to evaluate where you have come and what your
progress has been. You understand how far or how much farther you have to go
with you language or how much you have picked up on cultural and social norms,
how much more you need to learn because you dOn’t understand as much as you
think that you could or know that you could. I think that I’ve seen a lot of Nepal
because we have been jetting all around, but I could do with another month on
this program, but I could do with another year in Nepal before I understood it
properly. I mean you saw with someone’s presentation yesterday, which happened
to be the last one, that there are certain things people bring to their experience that
aren’t here, and they completely misconstrue and misrepresent the country and
that is something that I never want to do and I may and I probably (pause) I mean
I started to, but you learn from that once you are corrected. If you stay in the
culture long enough, almost all of those preconceived notions, and things that you
bring to the country are corrected or reformed or renewed or some kind of
adjective to describe it; reinvent it I guess. That is what is cool. Because I feel like
I’ve went through 3 or 4 reinventing processes. Like my roommate said, you
never know what is going to happen, you think that you are going to have an easy
day and then Nepal comes through.

Summary

The deconstruction and reconstruction of reﬂective learning was presented in
hope that a clearer understanding of this process in the context of a study abroad program
in Nepal could be explored and described. Reﬂective learning seemed to pervade much of

the overall experience of the learners involved. Every learner revealed a sense of

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reﬂective learning in their articulations of their experiences. The differences are
indicative of the dynamic and particular individuals that participated in the program,
which constitute the typology of reﬂective learners that was developed. A general sense
of the complexity of reﬂective learning was revealed in exploring how the focus, intent,
means and inﬂuences were understood by the learners themselves, and how together

these may inform a typology of reﬂective learning.

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Chapter V

Summary of Findings, Conclusion and Implications

In Chapter IV the ﬁndings of the study were presented. Chapter V presents a
summary of these ﬁndings. These ﬁndings are explored in relation to the objectives that
formed the intent of this study. Following this, a conclusion of the overall study moves

the focus towards implications of these ﬁndings for future applications.

Summary of Findings
The two objectives that informed this study were:
1) To explore the content of learner interview dialogues in understanding
reﬂective learning in relation to the present discourse surrounding this
phenomenon.
2) To explore the phenomenon of reﬂective learning over the extent of a

particular study abroad program in Nepal.

Findings from the deconstruction of reﬂective learning were in accordance with
the underlying premise of objective one, while the reconstruction of the reﬂective learner
provided an exploration of the phenomenon over the extent of the study abroad program
in Nepal, which relates to objective two. In exploration of this phenomenon, a Typology
of Reﬂective Learning and a Typology of Reﬂective Learners was developed in
accordance with these objectives, respectively. Following is a summary in accordance

with objective one, followed by a summary in accordance with the second objective.

Objective One: T 0 explore the content of learner interview dialogues in

understanding reﬂective learning in relation to the present discourse surrounding

the phenomenon.

The Presence of Reﬂective Learning : A Typology of Reﬂective Learning

The ﬁndings of this study indicate the salient role reﬂective learning had with a

learner and group of learners participating in a study abroad program in Nepal. By

exploring learner interview-dialogue, various interests were revealed as important for

their reﬂective learning and were developed as a typology represented in Table 3. This

table was originally presented in Chapter IV. It is provided here for clariﬁcation on the

classiﬁcatory scheme.

Table 3. Typology of Reﬂective Learning

 

Focus of Reﬂection

     

Subj ect/content of dialogue

 

 

Means of Reﬂection

    

Means sought to foster reﬂective learning

 

 

Reﬂective Intent

    

Result/Action/Change from reﬂection

 

 

  

Inﬂuences on Reﬂection

 
 
 

 
 

Variables affecting reﬂection both
articulated by learner and implied through
dialogue

 

The Focus of Reﬂective Learning Learners demonstrated a willingness to reﬂect

on the content of their learning experiences, the process of their learning, and in a few

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cases, the psychological, social and cultural premises structuring the perspectives they
brought to the experiences of their learning, each of which may be related as a focus of
their reﬂective learning. These three foci were inextricably bound in relation to one
another. The presence of one focus was indelibly reﬂected in the explicit or implicit
presence of the other. That is to say, when reﬂecting on the content of their experiences,
process was often revealed, or at times discussed by the learner. Premise assumptions
shaping learning perspectives that learners had coming into the experience were also
revealed in the content of some interview dialogue. At times learners were able to
explicitly comment on these assumptions, reﬂectively learning how they shaped their
perspectives. In the process, they either developed a new perspective or substantiated an
old perspective, yet indelibly questioned prior perspectives that structured their learning.
In this way the learners could be considered reﬂective learners.

Together, these three foci supplemented the other, disparately these foci revealed
idiosyncratic characteristics that learners developed in relation to each. When reﬂecting
on the content of their experiences, learners often tended towards a developed meaning of
relativity, a reconstructed worldview guiding their perspectives and an interrogative
introspection of their Self. During the duration of the program, reﬂective content tended
to vary with the experience of the learner, which in turn, was in a functional relationship
with time, adjustment and communication - all discovered to be inﬂuences on the
reﬂective learning of participants. These general perspectives were developed through the
shared and individual experiences learners had during the program.

Most learners revealed a developed sense of relativity both explicitly and

implicitly. Explicitly, learners commented on the value of differing perspectives in

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understanding their own. This was in relation to both the differing perspectives inherent
in their learning experiences in Nepal (i.e. the physical and mental landscapes that were
different from their own), as well as the differing perspectives that respective students
brought to one another's perspective. Implicitly it was revealed in the actual experiences
learners reﬂected on from the developed sense of difference and relativity found within
them.

In relation to the content of their learned experiences, the degree of relativity in
their statements concerning their experiences were distinct in both the extent of relativity
and in regards to when it ﬁrst became evident in the voices of the learners. For those who
exhibited a relativist perspective from the time of the ﬁrst interview, the experience as a
whole either served to deepen the quality of this perspective, or, in a few cases, allowed
the individual to develop a critical awareness of the social, cultural and psychological
factors that worked in a functional relationship to that relativist perspective. Learners
whose relative perspective ﬁrst developed over the course of the experience developed
this new perspective through the ideas and perspectives they had before the beginning of
the experience along with their new experiences. Regardless of their perspective, learners
facilitated the inception and development of a relativistic perspective through actively
engaging in reﬂective learning, relating past and present knowledge and experience, and
exploring the similarities and differences they perceived.

In addition to the emergence and development of relative perspectives, the
worldview of learners was impacted. This was explicitly demonstrated in some learner
testimonies as well as implicitly revealed in others. Worldview is generally deﬁned as the

spiritual beliefs and principles in which a person functions in society. Many leamers'

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view of the world was confronted and challenged by reﬂectively relating their
experiences in Nepal to the prior assumptions that guided their worldview before
participating in the experience. For others, it was an afﬁrmative sense of connection that
was developed through relating the differences that were encountered, and the
development of a worldview that was both more inclusive of differing perspectives and
an afﬁrmation of previously held assumptions. The study abroad experience presented
differences in cultural worldviews, which, along a continuum of possibilities, provided
the opportunity for a reconstructed worldview to develop, through participants
reﬂectively interpreting this new perspective as they understood it.-

Finally, reﬂecting about ones' Self was at times evident in the testimonies of
particular learners, and thus constituted a great deal of the reﬂective interview content.
This tended to be facilitated through the use of writing and through the interaction of
other people, both Nepalese and other students, as well as a function of the direct
experience learners were engaged in, and their own personal writings. The study abroad
experience in Nepal facilitated a potential for learners to engage in the Other, both in
relation to people from another place, society and culture, as well as the Other
encountered through the dynamics of the group. Both of these situations manifested an
encounter with the participants Self, as a result of the encounter with the Other. In
reﬂecting on their Self, learners revealed a particularly potent aspect of reﬂective
learning, where they confronted assumptions and perspectives that can be held as
exclusive. Many learners revealed a willingness to explore the Other, and through this
reﬂective learning exploration, discovered a sense of something learned about their Self,

or recognized that the experience was affecting their Self in some unexplicable manner.

124

Process as a Focus of Reﬂection was most often related by learners as their
recognition of relating past knowledge and experiences, to that which they were
experiencing and coming to know in Nepal. Learners related this aspect of their learning
in a reﬂective manner when describing the process during the interview. It was also
indicative of the content of the interview dialogues that were transcribed and reviewed.

The social dynamic was a manifest element in the overall learning of participants,
and it became apparent for many that this was a process for them to relate and reﬂect on
their experiences. The learners themselves became a process of their learning, by
interacting with one another, and constructing the meaning of their experiences through
this interaction. .

Finally, recognition of the premise assumptions that a learner inexplicably brings
to a learning experience was referenced by a few learners, during the time of the
interviews. Here, cultural parameters were discussed as shaping how one could view and
understand their experiences. In this way, these learners demonstrated reﬂective learning
that explores basic assumptions that one has and how this comes to deﬁne reality and

how one can learn from it.

Reﬂective Learning Means Exploring the means of reﬂection used by
learners was important in understanding how different learners came to learn about their
experiences. This reﬂection occurred under various conditions, like particular activities
learners engaged in or an attempted reﬂective exercise with ones' Self. More predominant
was a social mechanism, where understanding was facilitated through the dialogue

between learners and when possible, Nepali people. The experiences themselves were

also discussed, as were various program initiatives such as writing papers and daily
journal writing.

Through various activities, like writing in a journal, writing required papers,
attending lectures, etc., learners were able to reﬂect on their experiences, and gain a more
informed perspective of those experiences. Writing, in any sense, was seen by some as a
valuable way to review initial impressions, and articulate thoughts so that they could be
clariﬁed. In many ways, this instrument facilitated the mean of the learners Self, in
coming to learn about their experiences.

The Self of the learner functioned as a means through which to develop ideas and
perspectives that were developing from their experiences. Learners talked about an
internal dialogue that served this purpose. Time spent in thinking about their experiences
and the questions that they were creating, allowed the learner to construct new or revised
meanings.

Learners talked extensively about their learning process when explored in relation
to the content of their experience and more signiﬁcantly in relation to the means through
which learners facilitated this process. In developing their reﬂective learning, learners
talked about relating the experience(s) in Nepal to those experiences that constituted their
knowledge before beginning this experience. Some learners articulated this explicitly,
revealing it as a natural means in which to approach their learning. Do to the limitation of
language, this was most often accomplished through group interaction, and not between
other Nepali's.

Social interaction within the group, both as a whole, and amongst smaller

subgroups, fostered a high degree of reﬂective learning. Many leamers recognized the

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differing perspectives could add or enhance their own perspective and learning. Almost
all the learners found this a valuable exercise in checking their understanding with that of
another. An interesting note is that one participant viewed this process as at times a
limiting function to their learning. The participant gave more value to the intuitive sense
of her perception, and found the process of reﬂecting with other learners as
counterproductive and distracting to an understanding that otherwise could have been
served through her own intuitive sense. Such a difference points to the varying
perspectives learners can have regarding their learning, and various interests that suit
particular learners

Still, overall, the group served the function of allowing ideas and perspectives to
be presented and discussed. The dialogue between learners afforded the opportunity to
explore the multitude of perspectives and realities that each individual was experiencing.
In sharing these perspectives with one another, learners found their own experiences and
perspectives to be questioned.

All of the four categories were in relative relation to one another. Activities
involve people if they are social. Writing involves a dialogue with ones Self if it is done

individually. Essentially, they all functioned in relation to one another.

Reﬂective Intent: What it Meant for the Learner The perspectives of learners
were affected in various ways relative to the learner and the perspective they brought to
the experience. For some the experience afﬁrmed many personal perspectives, which
gained greater depth and meaning through actually experiencing them in Nepal. For

others, the opposite occurred, where the actuality of the experience confronted the

previous perspectives that were held by the learner, thereby developing a new perceived
perspective. In either case, learners were actively constructing and reconstructing their
learning perspectives.

It was impossible to explore how this was applied by the learner, as the current
study was contextually deﬁned to the study abroad experience in Nepal, and did not
explore the affects of learning on the participants following the conclusion of the
program. Still, learners articulated perceived changes in perspectives, anticipated the
change that was developing through the experience, and envisioned an ongoing process
of learning upon their return home. The experience in Nepal began the reﬂective process,

which is signiﬁcant in any journey involving learning.

Inﬂuences on the Experience of the Reﬂective Learner When
reﬂecting on their learning, learners discussed adaptation, communication and time as
signiﬁcant to their reﬂective learning. These inﬂuences are consistent with previous
studies that have explored learning abroad (Laubscher, 1994; Sikkema & Niyekawa—
Howard, 1977). Invariably, these three inﬂuences are bound to one another. Over time,
learners became more adapted relative to their environment and experiences, and thus
were able to communicate between themselves and other Nepalese in regards to
understanding and making meaning of their experiences.

Through adapting, learners generally found their learning to develop and mature.
This was due to a sense of comfort that was created over the extent of the program.
Becoming comfortable in their living environment was foremost on their minds in the

beginning. Over time, learners found their learning focus to adapt in relation to the

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adaptations they were making in response to their environment and new experiences.
Sikkema & Niyekawa—Howard (1977) found similar ﬂuctuations in learner adaptability in
relation to how study abroad participants process their learning. This is consistent with
other studies (Lysgaard, 1955) that have explored this phenomenon. Still each of these
studies, as well as the present study, varies in relative degrees to one another.

In this study, adaptability, in most cases, was equated with a relative change in the
quality of information that could be taken and reﬂectively interpreted by the learner. In
one speciﬁc instance, the quality was seen to move in the opposite direction, as the
learner found the ability to perceive certain subtleties as more difﬁcult. Again, this points
to the uniqueness of learner perspectives. Regardless, learners felt the need to adapt, and
it was expressed as signiﬁcant in their reﬂective dialogue.

In relation to time, the beginning, middle and end of the program revealed the
different learning perspectives learners developed. Some learners explicitly noticed the
importance of time. Inherent within all interview dialogues was the inﬂuential presence
of time on learner experiences and perspectives of those experiences. Through adapting
over time, the reﬂective learning of the learner adapted and developed. At the conclusion
of the program, time inﬂuenced the synthesis and evaluation the learner placed on their
experience. Some tried to assess their learning, while others felt the limitations time had
on allowing them to reach a comfortable point of synthesis. In either case, time was
recognized as important to their reﬂective learning.

In some manner, communication was recognized as both important and
signiﬁcant to the reﬂective learning of the learners. In establishing coherence and

constructing revised meanings of their experiences, learners talked with one another. The

social process of reﬂective learning was one of the more salient and intriguing
discoveries of this study. For many of the learners, it seemed equally as intriguing and
exciting to engage in this act of reﬂective learning as it was to engage in the mutual
experiences that they were having through the study abroad program. The familiarity and
commonality developed within the group over time allowed the majority of participants
to feel comfortable in expressing their impressions and perspectives on their experiences.
They became adapted to one another, and over time, felt more comfortable
communicating with one another. Aside from the actual experience of living and studying
in Nepal, the social phenomenon developed between the group was discussed by most
learners as the most signiﬁcant aspect of their experience.

Fewer learners revealed the barriers of communication between themselves and
Nepalese as a function of their overall reﬂective learning. Those who did mention this
found the inability to communicate directly with other Nepalese as a limitation on their
overall experience. For this reason, developing meaning of the overall experience was
less a function of the communication expressed between learners and Nepalese, and more
a function of a dialogue between learners. Still, this was relative to the particular learner.
Although corrununication was not explicitly stated in many interviews, it was revealed as
a signiﬁcant source of learning and meaning for learners.

Together, these four category types were found to constitute a Typology of
Reﬂective Learning. In a general sense, these category types informed the analysis of the
interview dialogue, which demonstrated the similarities and differences found between

the learners and their interview dialogues. Focus, Means, Intent and Inﬂuence were

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emergent categories, which helped to better understand the phenomenon of reﬂective

learning in the context of this study.

Objective Two: To explore the phenomenon of reﬂective learning over the extent

of a particular study abroad program.

Reﬂective Learning Reconstructed: A Typology of Reﬂective Learners

The six learners presented in the findings, as reconstructed reﬂective learners,
were used to develop a Typology of Reﬂective Learners situated on a continuum of
reﬂective learning. This continuum was inclusive of the core categories, which were
found to be indicative of reﬂective learning. Learner interviews conducted over the
length of the program revealed dynamic and varied perspectives. In taking a learner
perspective, this study allowed the voice of the learner to articulate and express these
variances. What was found is that learners vary between the signiﬁcance they attach to
the content, process and premise of their reﬂective learning, as well as to the means,
intent and what is perceived to be inﬂuential on their learning. These differences did not
create disparate exclusions of learning, yet rather demonstrated the uniqueness of the
learner in an experience along an inclusive continuum, of which all learners were apart.
Although limitations restricted presenting all of these perspectives, all learners were apart
of this continuum. Those presented in the ﬁndings were used as representative examples

for development of the Typology of Reﬂective Learners.

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Below is a table containing the group of reﬂective learners and their

corresponding characteristic which was used to develop a Typology of Reﬂective

Learners.

Table 8. Typology of Reﬂective Learners

  

 

I Learner Type Typological Characteristic i

'Questioning Learner

  
 
  

Exploration of basic
perspectives which guide
assumptions of learning and
reality

 

 

"Synthesizing Learner

Looking to synthesize
informative content of
experiences with past
knowledge so as to inform
new opinions and actions

 

 

 

 

A
C
o
N
T
1

N
U
U
M
}

 

 

"Content Informed Learner

 

 

Reiteration of experiences
in comparing content with
past knowledge and

ex oeriences

      
 

Returning to the speciﬁc examples, Kevin demonstrated a perspective of

exploring various levels of content, process and premise through questioning the basic

assumptions that were guiding his learning perspectives. In this way he can be associated

with what some (Mezirow 1991 , Brookﬁeld, 1987) associate with a learner who is

engaged in critical reﬂection. Moving from an initial relativist perspective regarding his

experiences, Kevin talked about the assumptions that he began to question in regards to

how and what he knew before the experience. He began to realize that what he was

learning through the program was inevitably shaped and develOped in relation to his

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social/cultural background which he carried with him to the experience. In this way,
Kevin began a process of reﬂection that explored the underlying perspectives that shaped
his learning. In the process, he reﬂected on the process of his learning in relation to this
realization, and to the contextual experiences that were important in developing the
perspectives that were being reconstructed during the program.

Gael's dialogue was indicative of a reﬂective learner of a different type, that of
focusing on informative content. She moved back and forth between content and process,
bouncing between these two perspectives, yet never following through to the premises
that may have been inﬂuencing those perspectives. Her reﬂective learning centered
mostly on the content, relating her new experiences to that which she had known before.
Eventually, Gael began to critically assess her learning in relation to the experiences she
was having in Nepal. In this way, Gael demonstrated a growing awareness of her reality
in the context of the program, which was revealed through reﬂectively interpreting the
content of her present experiences.

Mark, was typiﬁed by his attempts at continually attempting to synthesize and
connect his learning experiences. Throughout the dialogue of Mark's interview was a
pervasive sense of trying to make connections with his new experiences and knowledge,
from that which he knew in the past. It was apparent that every learner was doing this to
some degree, but in Mark's case, it remained an ongoing focus of his dialogue, and thus
became indicative of a particular type of reﬂective learner. By focusing on this aspect of
his reﬂective learning from the beginning of the program, Mark was consisting willing to
return to this aspect of synthesis, which he saw as important in transforming his present

practices and beliefs.

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Gwyn, Andy and Roy, respective to their own similarities and differences in
perspectives which they brought to the experience, involved differing amounts of content,
process and premise in relation to their reﬂective learning. Like Kevin, Roy's dialogue
revealed a reﬂective learning process that explored content, process and premise
assumptions. Unique to Roy's situation was his previous travel experience, which was
evidenced in his relating these past experiences to those experiences he was having in
Nepal. When relating these past experiences, Roy mentioned the cultural parameters that
shaped his understanding and meaning of his experiences, as well as the reality that he
was experiencing. In this way he represents a learner that was critically reﬂective of his
learning experiences.

Like Gael, Gwyn focused more exclusively on the content of her experiences in
exploring her reﬂective learning. This was largely conceptualized through her direct
experiences, and how she perceived her learning to be enhanced by this direct exposure.
In this way she was a content reﬂective learner, exploring her experiences in relation to
her past knowledge and experiences.

Finally, Andy was somewhere between the questioning typiﬁed by Kevin, and the
process of connecting his learning, indicative of Mark, in falling along the continuum.
Although representative of both of these types in some manner, Mark never exhibited the
same degree of searching, and questioning that pervaded Kevin's dialogue, or the degree
of trying to make connections that Mark exempliﬁed. Therefore, he falls somewhere in
the middle of these two types.

The six learners were presented as means to give examples of the variety of

perspectives that are present within any group of individuals reﬂectively learning in a

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study abroad experience in Nepal. Every learner that was part of this study demonstrated
varying degrees of content, process and premise in their reﬂective learning. The
dynamics of reﬂective learning explored by learners during the study abroad experience
in Nepal was a mirror reﬂection of the dynamics of their experiences of living and
learning in another country, with differing psychological, social and cultural norms that
pushed the boundaries of thought and perspective of the learners. Learning is generally
deﬁned as change. Reﬂective learning is generally viewed as a process of assessment or
reassessment of assumptions guiding perspectives through which knowledge is
constructed that involves a process of deep thought, both a looking backwards to the
situation being pondered upon and a projecting forward to the future. In a relative sense
this experience began a process of change for the learner. That is to say, that to begin to
reﬂectively learn, a process of change for the individual begins, regardless of how that
change is behaviorally or cognitively realized. The change is implicit in the processed
experienced.

Learners revealed the beginning process of such reﬂective learning in articulating
the questions that were challenging their perspectives. There was observable change in
perspective that developed over the course of the program. The learner participants'
ability to conceptualize their experiences through continually questioning and exploring
their experiences, while continually comparing them to their perspectives and previous
experiences, pushed the boundaries that previously structured their perspectives. Learners
found their own ways in which to facilitate this process, adapting to their situation,
finding ways to communicate, and discovering means through which to express the

meaning and understanding they were developing.

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Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to explore the reﬂective learning of participants in a
study abroad experience in Nepal, by allowing the voices of the learners to describe their
perspectives of this learning process. Reﬂective learning is part of a process of learning
that emerges and functions dialectically with the experiences of a learner, and the
reconstruction of knowledge and meaning through those experiences. Proponents of
reﬂective learning implore the beneﬁts thatit can have for emancipating the learner from
psychological, social and cultural structures that shape and determine perspective,
thereby limiting the acceptance or inclusion of new and different perspectives.

Study abroad learning programs offer unique learning experiences that are rich in
content, which is relatively different than the content of experience that learners bring
with them to the study abroad experience. The study abroad program in Nepal presented
a context of learning that was indicative of this richness. The program exposed
participants to social and cultural systems that were noticeably unique compared to the
normative perspectives that the learner brought to the experience. This richness of
content and experience, relative to the context of Nepal, facilitated a reﬂective learning
environment that was revealed through the dialogue of individual learners.

That reﬂective learning was prevalent amongst learners in a study abroad program
in Nepal is evident from this study. Discovering more about the characteristics of it in
relation to the learner gives some perspective on what meaning this study has beyond this
text.

The following are concluding highlights that guided the realized implications of

this study.

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Reﬂective Learning Typology The typology developed from this study was an
exploratory attempt at understanding further the phenomenon of reﬂective learning. The
categories that emerged are indicative of the phenomenon as it was explored for this
study. Since this study was deﬁned by the context of the study abroad program, with
explicit focus on the process of reﬂective learning, the implications of this typology must
be understood in relation to these parameters.

What the categories of the typology revealed, was that there are a number of
factors that function explicitly and implicitly with reﬂective learning: focus, means,
intent, and inﬂuence, as expressed by learners. The development of this typology, in an
abstract sense, facilitated the process of extracting these typicality's from the reﬂective
learner dialogue. In doing so, an improved understanding of the phenomenon was

facilitated.

Typology of Reﬂective Learners In exploring the phenomenon of reﬂective
learning, the categories which informed the development of the typology of reﬂective
learning were broken out from the dialogue into disparate units. These units were
necessary in eliciting an informed opinion on the phenomenon of reﬂective learning
itself. Following this analysis, the phenomenon itself seemed overly segmented from the
whole that was exhibited in the interview dialogues. Because of this, an effort was made
to bring the segments back together in rediscovering the learners, whose dialogue
informed the initial analysis. As a result, a rudimentary typology of reﬂective learners

was developed, incorporating distinctive representative learners into a framework for

137

analysis. What was found is that learners tend to function along a learning continuum
during the process of their experiences. Distinct points along this continuum informed the
creation of certain typologies of learners, whose learner dialogues revealed striking
exemplars of reﬂective learning. Through further analysis, this continuum could be
deve10ped further, in further delineating learner types. For the purpose of this study, it
served a useful ﬁmction of bringing the individual learner back to the level of

representation, which was denied in the analysis reﬂective learning itself.

The Group, The Learner and The Social Dynamics of Reﬂective Learning
Social interaction amongst group members facilitated the greatest degree of reﬂective
learning. Learners found the insights, perspectives and actions of other group members as
important to their reﬂective learning. In a sense, the learners themselves became teachers
for one another. The shared, as well as individual experiences of the learners provided the
content for this reﬂective activity to occur. Through sharing with one another, learners
found their own perspective to deve10p and change, shift and reform, coalesce and
become afﬁrmed. It was this dynamic process between experience/content and reﬂecting

on the experience with other learners that facilitated meaning making for learners.

Reﬂective Learning as a Function of Time Interviews done at different periods
of the study abroad experience allowed for the exploration of the inﬂuence of time on the
reﬂective learning of participants. The reﬂective learning of participants changed over the
time of the experience. Becoming adapted and being able to communicate, in relation to

time facilitated this process. By the second interview, week four and ﬁve, almost all

138

participants had reached a point where they began to conceptualize their learning.
Towards the end of the program learners strove to synthesize and evaluate their learning,
reﬂecting back on both the experiences, and the changes in perspective that had
developed over the course of the program. The exploration of reﬂective learning during
different points of time of the program allowed for a picture to develop of how this

process occurs for various individuals.

The Informal Interview, and Its' Pedagogical Function The informal
interview is often used in qualitative research as means through which to gain an
understanding of the view of the interviewee (Byram, 1996). It was with this intent that
an interview was used as the main data instrument for the study. Interviews also serve
educational purposes in that it allows the interviewee to gain a greater understanding of
their experience through the function of dialogue. The interview serves as a reﬂective
exercise for the learner to gain a greater understanding of their learning and what they
had perceived to learn, enabling the learner the opportunity to contextualise the
experience within their previous experiences (Byram, 1996; Cain, 1996). The intent of
the study was to explore study abroad participants as reﬂective learners, yet it became
apparent that in many ways the interview used to explore this aspect of learning was, in
part, an aspect of their reﬂective learning. However, it was evident from the content of
the interviews conducted that learners were learning in a reﬂective manner outside of the
time spent during the interviews. Regardless, this technique was used in a manner
coinciding with elements of supportive research, which combines investigation,

education and potential action as the intent, so that in essence the interview served the

139

purpose that the research paradigm suggests. Many learners shared this sentiment, as it
was discussed how the interview was helpful for them in understanding their experience
more critically. The interview encouraged them to focus on their learning, and to
articulate that understanding, through which they gained a more coherent understanding

of their experience.

The Function of the Research Methodology The grounded theory methodology
used for this study was helpful in drawing out the distinct characteristics that were a part
of participants reﬂective learning during a study abroad experience in Nepal, as well as
elucidating the differences in reﬂective learning that occurs for various participants of the
program. Grounded theory methodology is used to discover inherent theoretical
representations emerging from social phenomenon, as well as developing a greater
conceptual understanding of this phenomenon. It is from this second function that this
study beneﬁted the most. By exploring the social phenomenon, rather than looking to
prove hypothetical hypotheses that guide assumptions of the study, this study allowed the
voices of the learners to emerge, elucidate and create the ﬁndings, which in the end, adds

to the discourse surrounding reﬂective learning.

Implications
Following is a list of implications that provide a perspective of the meaning of
this study in relation to the phenomenon of reﬂective learning, as it was discovered in

accordance with a study looking at a study abroad program in Nepal.

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Recognizing the complexity of reﬂective learning and learners The process of
reﬂective learning is complex, and should be recognized as such when attempting to
encourage this type of learning in any type of program setting. This can be done most
effectively by taking a learner perspective, and determining the perspectives the learner
has from the very beginning of any learning experience.

Reﬂective learning is not a happenstance occurrence that is easily recognizable.
Upon the initial disorientation that insights such thinking and learning, individuals need
time to interpret, process, and reﬂect the perspectives that are under construal, as well as
develop means through which to communicate this process, so that it can be understood
and meaning can develop. Facilitators of such learning should explore the context of the
situation, and develop a trusting rapport with individuals, so as to foster and encourage
the most appropriate means for the individual learner. Facilitators should also remain
cognizant of how adapting, communication, and time itself inﬂuence reﬂective learning.

The development of typologies for both the phenomenon of reﬂective learning,
and a group of reﬂective learners, provides added insight into the complexity of this
phenomenon. Those interested in the phenomenon, either for themselves, or for the
explicit purpose of facilitating its process, may take note of the characteristics which
were presented in this text. By noting these characteristics of the phenomenon, and
potential learners, facilitators' position themselves to grasp the complexity of the
phenomenon, and to institute appropriate means to account for the phenomenon in
various learning programs. Simply saying an exercise is reﬂective in nature is not
enough. Those facilitating the process should be aware of the phenomenon, so as to

facilitate the process appropriately.

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Strong consideration should be given to the social dimension of reﬂective
learning. The social dynamics of reﬂective learning are important for the development
of learner perspectives. This has been recognized by a number of studies exploring
reﬂective learning and the importance of discourse in the development and meaning of
knowledge (Mezirow, 1991; Habermas, 1968).

Facilitators of reﬂective learning should make efforts to deve10p pr0per reﬂective
learning conditions for learners to take full advantage of the opportunity to learn from
one another. This involves recognizing that individuals partake of this activity on their
own, in non-formal learning circumstances, as well as in more organized activities. In
fact, it is the informal dialogue that develops between individuals that may contribute to
some of the more signiﬁcant reﬂective learning for individuals. This is often due to the
difﬁculty in establishing trust and creating a functioning dialogic environment with large
numbers of people. Taking into consideration group size and learning activities that
encourage dialogue and discussion are important in ensuring that the social dynamics can
be useful and beneﬁcial to the learner. Like any learning program, consideration should
be given to the ideal group size to facilitate learning goals. For the fostering of reﬂective
learning, no more than 20 individuals is desirable. Programs with larger numbers of
participants may need to consider additional full-time facilitators to improve upon the
possibility of attending to learners, so proper learning environments and activities can be
established.

Articulating ones own perspectives and ideas helps facilitate and construct the
leamers' understanding and meaning of their experience. The learners can contribute their

own learning for the beneﬁt of others. In this way it becomes a collaborative learning

142

activity. Learning and contributing to another's learning is a powerful form of reﬂective
learning. Ensuring that social interaction is encouraged, maintained, and developed over
the extent of the program should be given top priority if reﬂective learning is to be

encouraged.

A one-to-one learning focused interview is an effective means through which
to facilitate reﬂective learning. Talking with learners one-on-one served a pedagogical
function of encouraging reﬂective learning processes. Learning programs may consider
developing components of their programs that allow for such dialogue to occur between a
learner and facilitator of reﬂective learning. The interview allowsfor a structured
dialogue to occur between learner and facilitator, and thus lacks the capriciousness of
informal conversations. It also allows for an intimate forum that is free from social
pressures and obtrusive distractions that limit the potential for 'a critical dialogue to
develop. Although this study involved interviews during the time of a study abroad
program, the beneﬁt of conducting one-to-one interviews both prior to, and following the
conclusion of any similar type of learning program, should also be considered. This
would further develop the overall process of the reﬂective learning process for the
learner. Administrators of programs may need to train facilitators in interview techniques,
and provide support so as to maximize the potentials of such an endeavor. These
interviews should be voluntary. Participants should not be forced to participate in such

interviews.

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Having a learner perspective is needed to foster reﬂective learning in a
learning experience. When given the unique Opportunity to socially interact with a
small, deﬁned and contained group of learners, facilitators of learning programs should
be encouraged to deve10p a learner perspective from the beginning of the program. In the
Study Abroad Program in Nepal, it was found that learners constructed and reconstructed
the understanding and meanings of their experiences throughout the extent of the
program. The leamers' perspective that is present at the beginning of the such a learning
program is functional to the perspectives that are developed during the program, and the
meaning and knowledge they gain from the program and experience as a whole. By
understanding the learner from the perspective they bring to the experience, facilitators of
learning programs create the potential to maximize the learning experience for everyone
involved in the program. This learner perspective can be developed and encouraged
through reﬂective learning activities and by the facilitators themselves reﬂecting on their
own learning and thinking in relation to the program and the participants for whom they

are assisting in learning.

Afterward: A Reﬂexive Response Regarding Reﬂective Learning

It seems only ﬁtting that I, the author, would bring a close to a thesis about
reﬂective learning with a brief digression regarding my own relationship with this
phenomenon. As has been related repeatedly through this thesis, learning is a dynamic
process, which often may ﬁnd synthesis through the dialectical relationship of learner and
learned. Through the process of writing this thesis, I too, as the author, have been a

learner, dynamically engaged in the process of meaning making and learning through a

144

dialectical relationship between writing and the engagement of this process with my Self.
I hope this was evident through some of the ideas presented in the thesis, but I also
realize that there is much which could not be included - given the limitations of format
and time.

Still, I believe that in presenting such ideas, the reader should not be bedazzled
and fooled into believing that this was a snapshot of time, revealed in the stagnantly static
pages of text. Rather, this was a dynamic, temporally bound process, which began one
and a half years ago, when I ﬁrst began formulating ideas for the thesis, and continues to
the present, as I write these closing remarks.

In some ways unfortunate, this thesis became yet another predictable treatise in
form, masking the actual creativity and dynamism that is involved in any writing, and for
that matter, learning process. This brief digression is a tribute to this dynamism, whether
recognized or not, which informed the writing of this work and the reﬂective learning
that was an integral part of it. It was work that consumed much of me, and my time, over
the past two years, and thus has been inﬂuential on my being.

As a reﬂexive process of learning, my writing of this thesis was a voyage of
discovery and rediscovery of the reﬂective learning phenomenon. Writing, as was
referenced in the text, is often used as a reﬂective exercise of learning. It is a means
through which one can transfer thoughts, in a concrete tangible form, to paper. In the
process, the ﬂow of ideas that move to the paper can be returned to the mind from which
they came. I continually found myself engaged in this text - sometimes to the point of

exhaustion — trying to put down, in some varied form, the learning of what I had learned.

I explored the phenomenon of reﬂective learning in relation to a group of
participants involved in a study abroad program in Nepal, yet it was my initial discovery
of the notion of reﬂective learning, which prompted such exploration. 1 would like to take
a step back and remember these incipient moments of discovery, as a further means
through which to develop the dynamism of the process of this writing.

I ﬁrst became aware, and subsequently interested, in the phenomenon of reﬂective
learning, while taking a graduate class in adult learning theory. It was during these class
periods, when the ideas of learning were discussed amongst a group of learners, that I
began to traverse the meanings these ideas had for me as an individual.

At the time of taking the class on learning theory, I had been back in the United
States for just about one year, after spending over two years in Nepal, and other countries
of South and South East Asia. During that year, after I returned back to the United States,
I struggled and searched for meaning of those years spent away. It was this searching,
which undoubtedly brought me back to the classroom that I was in, searching for an
understanding of what I had experienced.

It was within these discussions that I began to discover something previously
unknown to me: I took a voyage within, reﬂecting on recent experiences that had had a
profound effect on me as an individual. These daytime discussions immediately
transported me back to my previous years spent in Nepal, and how I had, and was,
continuing to be transformed by my experiences there and elsewhere in Asia. I can recall
the almost amorphous existence of my thoughts up until that time, switching and

reconﬁguring into patterns of discernment as allusively as clouds caught in the wind. It

146

was only during these classroom discussions, which introduced me to such terms, that my
ideas started to take shape.

My experiences were what, after reading a great deal of literature on reﬂective
learning, I consider to be ‘transformative’ in nature. I hope, upon reading this thesis, the
reader has a rudimentary understanding of what is meant by such a phrase. Up until the
time when I began to become familiar with such literature and terminology, I had no such
language to refer to what I was experiencing. It was an amazing experience in itself,
when I ﬁrst became aware of these ideas.

I moved back and forth between my own thoughts and the various texts and
persons with whom I discussed these ideas. The more I learned about the idea the more
the term reﬂection seemed appropriate. It was as if the ideas and I were two mirrors
reﬂecting off of one another. I can still remember the variable moments of epiphany
when I ﬁrst began to make the meaningful connections between what I was learning and
how it was signiﬁcant to my own experiences. It was an amazing moment for me as an
individual, as I began to gain greater control over what had, and was, happening to me as
a result of my experiences abroad. It also instilled within me the motivation to explore
this phenomenon further. What a great opportunity I would have to do so!

So, in discussion of the idea of reﬂective learning, I began to wonder how I could
explore this idea further. Fortunately, even before taking this class, I had arranged to
work for the study abroad program that became the focus of this thesis. Whether
serendipitous or not, my eventual involvement in the program gave me the opportunity
for which I was searching. I remember, that even at that time, I began to recognize that

this was not only an objective inquiry into the phenomena of reﬂective learning, but the

147

beginning of a personal dialogue between me, the students, and this notion of learning
that I had discovered. Thus began my own journey into the ideas that guided this study.

The writing of this thesis certainty became a mirror for my thoughts, revealing at
times, yet oﬁen overly reﬂective to the point where I felt I was looking at a never ending
reﬂection or mirror images, moving me further from the meaning of what I was searching
for. It was during these times that I searched for friends, family and mentors, who then
became a new form of mirror through which I could reﬂect my thoughts. I will be
eternally grateful for there unconditional support. Again, this point, of reﬂectively
learning through the social engagement with others, was brought up in the text as means
through which many participants sought and facilitated their own reﬂective learning. It
seemed only natural then, for me to do the same, even though it was often instinctual, and
beyond the rationality of predetermined thought.

While writing this text, I was also absorbed in texts that guided most of the ideas
that informed my opinions of my own work and writing. In this way, the texts, which I
perused, extended my own thoughts, and transformed my understanding throughout the
ﬁve months that this was written, and the preceding months of participating in the
program with the students. The philosophical positioning that would eventually inform
my own exploration of reﬂective learning was what was referred to as constructivism in
the body of the text. One of the main premises for this position is the meaningful
construction of knowledge and learning by an individual. This presupposes an ideal that
claims that there are always multiple realities from which various individuals interpret
their experiences, because it is the meaningful interpretations that hold true for the

individual in their interpretations of the experience. Being that this was the philosophical

148

position that guided the study, it also must be understood that this position informs my
own beliefs and opinions about learning. It would be absurd to claim or admit that this
was not true, but it can often allude the reader and author, and thus must be constantly
reinforced. I wish to take this space to reinforce this aspect of my own learning. What

was presented in the text was undeniably biased through that which was meaningful to
me as a learner.

So, it cannot be said, that at any times my thoughts and learning were fulﬁlled in
any absolute sense. The overall process was, however, a fulﬁllment of the meaningful
learning that was necessary at this particular period in my life. In a relative sense, my
own learning of this phenomenon has continued up until the ﬁnal printing of this thesis,
and will continue far beyond what this text will demonstrate.

I have included this ﬁnal section as a means to reﬂectively related how I learned
through the process of completing this thesis. It has been a journey of discovery and
rediscovery. In the end it has been an instructive means, which has informed me of that

which is most important: to learn.

149

Appendicies

150

Appendix A

151

Interview Protocol

1. What issues regarding your learning are you thinking of at this point of the
experience?

2. Why is this?

3. What do you think inﬂuenced you to think about the issues you have

mentioned?

4. What does this mean for you in terms of what you have learned? What to you
anticipate doing with this new knowledge.

152

Appendix B

153

Interview Protocol Revision

1. Have you been thinking about your own learning up until this point in the experience?

Probes:
In regards to
What you are learning?
How you are learning?

id

Why do you think you are thinking about these things?

What do you think caused you to think about these things? Are there things that you
are doing to facilitate this?

D.)

4. Have you been thinking about your learning in regards to your self?

5. What does this mean for you in terms of what you have learned?
Does what you just described have any meaning to you?
Is the meaning relevant to this experience, or does it have meaning outside of the
context of this experience?

Appendix C

155

Personal Interview Consent Form

This research is being conducted to gather information that may be pertinent to the
eventual writing of a Master’s thesis. I will be conducting interviews to gain information
about the expectations of students and administrators with regards to the Nepal Overseas
Study program offered through Michigan State University.

Your participation in this interview is completely voluntary. This interview will be
recorded. All recordings will be conﬁdential in nature. You may elect not to answer any
questions, and you may end the interview at any time. Your opinions will be kept in
complete conﬁdentiality and none of your comments will be directly attributed to you in
the writing of the thesis.

Date Signature

 

156

Research Consent Form

This research is being conducted to gather information that may be pertinent to the
eventual writing of a Master’s thesis. Observations will recorded by the researcher as
pertains to the research exploring the learning of students in an overseas study
experience.

Your permission for this research to be conducted is completely voluntary. You may elect

to not be a participant if you so desire. References will be kept in complete
conﬁdentiality and none will be directly attributed to you in the writing of the thesis.

Date Signature

 

 

157

Research Consent Form

This research is being conducted to gather information that may be pertinent to the
eventual writing of a Master’s thesis. As per requirements for the Nepal Overseas Study
program students will submit various assignments to instructors. For those who choose to
participate in this research those assignments that they submit will be reviewed by the
researcher to better understand the different dimensions of their learning.

Permission to review these assignments for this research is completely voluntary. The
researcher will not be involved in the grading of the assignments submitted and thus
review of them for this research will not inﬂuence the grading marks for the students.
Any references made in the eventual writing of the thesis will be kept in complete
conﬁdentiality. There will not be direct reference to you in the writing of the thesis.

Date Signature

 

 

158

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159

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