Conducting a Reflective Interview: Example from the USD model By Lonnie Rowell, based on material from Laura Garcia, Veronica Briseño, and Jessica Gaytan September 2005
The notes that follow are based on work completed in the fall 2004 research methods class by USD graduate students Laura Garcia, Veronica Briseño, and Jessica Gaytan. The collaborative action research project they participated in was conducted at Sage High (fictitious name) in a large San Diego County High School District. Mrs. Gomez (not her real name), head counselor at Sage, was the primary practitioner partner. This document describes the reflective interview portion of the problem formulation stage of the collaborative action research process that took place at Sage during the 20042005 school year. The focus of this document is the relationship between the preliminary meeting (or meetings) with the practitioner partner(s) and conducting the reflective interview. In beginning their project, the students completed the following steps: 1) Once the site was known, the group focused on setting up an introductory appointment with the practitioner partner. This took several weeks. 2) The graduate student members of the collaborative action research team held an initial meeting with Mrs. Gomez in October 2004. The meeting took place in the Sage Counseling Center. At this preliminary meeting, the students and the school counselor serving as the lead practitioner partner got introduced, briefly discussed the nature of action research and the USD model for collaborative action research, discussed the situation at Sage in regards to the work of counselors, and identified some very general topics in counseling at Sage that might be explored utilizing the methods of collaborative action research. Based on this meeting, the team identified some themes to consider as they moved forward in planning an action research project with Sage. The themes that came out of this initial meeting were: 1. Concern about increasing counselors’ knowledge of the National Standards and the National Model. a. Veteran counseling staff was trained before publication of the standards and model. b. Difficult to adjust and do things in a different way.
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2. Drug abuse issues a. Possible need for classroom guidance i. Counselors not involved with this at present b. Possible need for improved communication with parents regarding drug abuse issues and for improved home-school collaboration in working on the issue with youth 3. In general, implementing the personal/social development domain of the National Standards a. Administration would like counselors to be more involved with classroom presentations related to personal/social development. b. Counseling Center’s focus has been on providing information regarding college and academic development. c. Question: Is it enough to have peer mediators (working under the supervision of Mr. Gonzales, a teacher) providing the classroom guidance on substance abuse prevention and intervention? d. Question: How does a high school counseling center go about establishing the priorities for what to focus on in the personal/social development area? 3) Based on these themes, plans for the reflective interview were completed. The planning included establishing an agenda, assigning roles for the graduate student team, and working out the logistics of the meeting with the practitioner partner. The plan was to conduct the interview with the four counselors at the site, including Mrs. Gomez. The interview took place in early November. The Agenda for this meeting was as follows: •
Introductions. Made sure everyone introduced her or himself.
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Review Agenda. Provided a very brief introduction regarding the purpose of the meeting. (This could be something like: “The purpose of our meeting today is to further discuss a focus for a collaborative action research project with Sage. Today, the graduate student members of the action research team will ask questions we hope will help move us towards a clear idea of the primary action research question or questions and the possibilities for the project. First, we will very briefly review the steps in the action research process.”)
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Action Research: An Overview. Used a handout on action research process to show the counselors in graphic form where we all were at that time – in the planning step.
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Summary of Initial Meeting. Presented a very brief summary of ideas from the initial meeting with Mrs. Gomez.
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Discussion. Used the questions below to facilitate a discussion with the counselors. The GOAL was to help the counselors begin to fully and deeply
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explore their thoughts and feelings on an idea or ideas that matter to them in their work together at Sage. a. NOTE: Keep the goal in mind and use the listening, probing, and challenging skills you are developing and you will be fine. A critical thing to remember when you are conducting an individual or group interview is that you need to use your basic communication skills. Listen carefully. Show that you are listening. Probe for information utilizing open-ended questions as much as you can. Be flexible. Be sure to take notes. If possible, tape the dialogue, but if anyone objects, then simply rely on note taking. In that scenario, I recommend that one of you facilitate the dialogue and the others take detailed notes. b. The suggested questions were: i. What are some of the things that matter most to you in regards to providing high quality school counseling at Sage? ii. What specific issues or concerns might be explored through an action research project? iii. Who will be involved with the project? Who will be the lead “practitioner partner?” iv. Have we made sure that the issue or concern being focused on meets the key criteria for action research in that it 1) is something the counselors care about, and 2) is something that is within your power to change or improve? v. What else do we need to know that will help us get started with the project? c. Notes were taken as the questions above were discussed. •
Capping. (Remember to leave just a couple of minutes to go around the circle one last time and ask each person to comment very briefly on her or his experience of the discussion. For example, they might comment on how helpful was the discussion? Did it bring to the surface important ideas involving the practice of school counseling at Sage? Were these ideas adequately explored?)
The action research instructor suggested that the students make the Notes for Reflective Interview with Counselors document (much of what you have read in this example is from that document) available to Mrs. Gomez prior to the interview and that they ask her input to see if she had any additions to the agenda. She approved of the agenda as it was. The interview yielded valuable information regarding how the counselors at Sage saw their work and what they viewed as priorities for strengthening their counseling practice. This information was utilized in formulating a research question that would then drive the collaborative action research project.
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