The personal, the platform and the political

ELiSS, Vol 2 Issue 2, November 2009 ISSN: 1756 ‐ 848X 1

The personal, the platform and the political

James Moir

School of Social and Health Sciences

Kydd Building

University of Abertay Dundee

Bell Street, Dundee

UK

DD1 1HG

Tel 01382 308752

Email: [email protected]

Biography

Dr James Moir is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Abertay

Dundee (Scotland) with a research interest the discourse of personal

development planning and graduate attributes in higher education. He is

currently a senior associate of the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and

Politics (CSAP) and has a particular interest in the firstyear experience in the

Scottish higher education system. This interest forms a major aspect of his

involvement with the Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) on the Graduates for

the 21st Century project.

mailto:[email protected]


The personal, the platform and the political

Abstract

This paper examines issues surrounding the use of electronic portfolios for

personal development planning (PDP) in sociology. These are now a common

feature of many virtual learning environments (VLEs) across higher education

institutions. However, while such an approach can be enabling for students in

their learning, all too often the learning process can be subtly moulded as an

instrumental rather than a critical process. Learning in this context can

become a process of managing information (including personal information)

rather than discovery, insight and growth. There is a clear tension here for

some between what they regard as the academic nature of personal

development, leading to personal growth and the concomitant contribution to

an educated citizenry, and the underlying national imperative that requires

knowledge linked to economic wealth creation. However, in an era of mass

higher education, it is often the latter that is a priority for governments. This

political dimension to PDP can be lost when located inside the practical

matters associated with education as an innerdirected process. One

suggestion for overcoming this issue is to make use of Web 2.0 as a platform

for opening up reflexive personal development planning through the various

tools that permit interaction. This paper considers this proposition in terms of

reflexive learning in sociology.

Key words: personal development planning, electronic portfolios, sociology,

reflexive learning, political issues


Introduction

Someone was said to have once asked the late and fondly remembered jazz

musician and broadcaster, Humphrey Lyttelton, where he thought jazz was

going. His reply was characteristically sharpwitted: ‘If I knew where jazz was

going, I’d be there already!’ It is amusing and somewhat ironic that this quip

should appear, of all places, in Peter Winch’s (1958) The idea of a social

science and its relation to philosophy, but it is perhaps all the more apt when

thinking about where the virtual university is ‘going’. Winch’s point in using this

anecdote was to illustrate why some forms of social practice are not

amenable to prediction derivable from any putative a priori knowledge of the

antecedents to those practices. Those who try to understand and perhaps

even critique where elearning is going from a social scientific viewpoint would

therefore do well to heed Winch’s point. The everincreasing speed of change

in computer technology, in terms of hardware, software and the social

practices (including learning practices) that both drive and follow these

developments, makes the area of elearning an evolving and unpredictable

moving target.

The word ‘target’ here perhaps betrays my own stance in this paper for,

although elearning is clearly evolving and moving, I believe it is possible to

take aim with some further critical points that the Humphrey Lyttelton

anecdote can teach us about how university educators are trying to use

electronic portfolios in sociology and more generally across the curriculum in

terms of personal development planning (PDP). These points derive from the

need for education to be at one and the same time controlling of what is

learned, but also to allow scope for personal growth that cannot be so easily

captured and specified through reference to learning outcomes. There are

clearly tensions here, and the use of portfolios to record the development of,

for example, ‘graduate attributes’ does not sit easily alongside many Web 2.0

applications and resources that can take students in many different directions.

This is the crux of the Lyttelton anecdote for the ‘virtual university’: the more

we use the immediacy and interactivity of the web as a pedagogic tool, the


more we open up learning beyond the borders of our codified educational

aims and outcomes into a world where we cannot so easily say where

students are ‘going’. This may be liberating in some respects but it occurs at a

time when most universities have modernised their operations through the

use of modular schemes with descriptors that require the specification of

learning outcomes, which in turn nest within programmes that require the

specification of stage outcomes.

This increasing bureaucratisation of the learning process as a codified product

is paradoxical when set aside alongside the ways in which students are

encouraged to engage with their curricula in a constructivist manner, and in

particular through modes of elearning that are studentled. This is not a new

pedagogical problem and it is one that confronts enquirybased learning: how

can we ensure that students learn what their curriculum demands but through

their own devices? In other words, how do we ensure that students meet

learning outcomes if they are encouraged to construct their own learning? I

would not wish to overstate this paradox given that students commonly

receive a mixed or blended learning approach which incorporates traditional

didactic modes of learning such as lectures and more participatory modes

such as discussion groups (via tutorials or electronically), contributions to

blogs, wikis, mashups, etc. The potential of these will be discussed later but it

is still also paradoxical that, despite the shift towards these more participatory

and open modes of learning, students are nonetheless encouraged to engage

in an innerdirected process in which they reflect upon and plan their own

learning and careers. Again, the rhetoric of graduate attributes is one that is

taken as driving this and is often linked to the notion of flexibility associated

with a globalised knowledge economy. Documenting the process in acquiring

these attributes has therefore become linked to the use of electronic PDP

portfolios.

The ideological effect of this personcentred discourse concerning PDP is

therefore of sociological interest in its own right. As previously noted, while on

the face of it this discourse may seem personally liberating, there are a

number of problematic issues that follow from this inward focus on personal


reflection. The root of this is the inherent voluntarism in such a focus and the

concomitant dissolving of wider political matters that impact upon the

individual into a private world of thoughts and feelings.

This discourse is now entrenched in policy initiatives at a national and trans

national level, notably through the Bologna process. Thus, in the world of

higher education, there is an increasing emphasis on encouraging students to

engage in PDP, both in an academic and vocational sense. This is taken as

developing independence in students so that they can become more

autonomous learners and career planners (WilsonMedhurst, 2005a,b).

However, tensions arise when educational and career matters are viewed as

being related to individual reflection and choice. Recent developments in PDP

in the UK have led to a concern with an instrumental approach to learning

rather than one based on viewing knowledge as provisional and open to

critique. However, the increasing use of Web 2.0 resources and applications

has given a literally new platform on which to adopt a more genuinely

constructivist approach to learning. This runs counter to the employability

driven approach associated with the inculcation of ‘graduate attributes’. The

argument advanced here is again related to the tensions inherent in this

individualising discourse that dissolve away any sense of the political

backdrop to these matters. It is evident that higher education is utilising a

variety of Web 2.0 products as a part of the learning process. Whether these

become an instrumental focus of learning in themselves, or whether they

facilitate learning as engagement with a process of scholarship and critical

scrutiny, is an interesting point.

PDP in UK Higher Education

It has been over a decade since PDP was proposed by the National

Commission into Higher Education in the UK (Dearing, 1997). The discussion

of PDP advanced in the report, which stresses a structured and supported

process designed to help the individual student reflect on their own learning

and to plan for their personal, educational and career development, has


become a central feature of higher education. The basic principles of PDP are

actionoriented and cyclical and include the following dimensions:

a) goal setting and action planning

b) doing (learning through the experience of doing with greater awareness)

c) recording (thoughts, ideas, experiences, evidence of learning)

d) reviewing (reflections on what has happened, making sense of it all), and

e) evaluating (making judgments about self and own work and determining

what needs to be done to develop, improve, and move on).

However, while these principles are readily accepted, their translation into

curricular developments and their relationship with subject provision are less

clear. This is a significant issue as the first ever mapping and synthesis review

of PDP processes found that most ‘adopted a prescriptive approach to PDP

implementation in order to achieve coursespecific outcomes’ (Gough, Kiwan

et al, 2003). The danger with such prescriptive approaches is that PDP may

come to be seen as an imposition rather than something that is integral to the

higher education experience. Moreover, it can be viewed as an end in itself

rather than as a means to a genuine engagement with knowledge.

PDP can be a genuinely transformational experience for students if it is linked

to their learning and pedagogic practice in the classroom. For example, there

is now often an explicit link made between PDP and the development of

graduate attributes (GAs) through specific curricular measures such as

enquirybased learning or, more loosely, what is referred to as ‘active

learning’. Broadly speaking, these modes of learning engagement promote a

sense of agency on the part of the student in terms of their involvement in the

learning process. It is here that PDP, through, for example, prompt questions

in electronic portfolios, encourages students to take a more reflective and

proactive stance towards their learning.

Therefore, if the process of PDP is to become an integral part of the student

learning experience, a number of fundamental constructs need to be accepted

by academic staff and students. It is crucial that these processes are integral


to the whole learning experience of a student in higher education and thus

should be embedded firmly with the rest of the curricula and student

experience, not seen as a separate activity or concept. The process also

needs to be underpinned by institutional strategies, especially for teaching,

learning and assessment and student support, and needs to be learner

centred in terms of supporting a wide range of different learning styles and

motivations. The main outcome from such processes in terms of personal

development is likely to be a significant contribution to students becoming

independent, autonomous, selfaware learners. In other words, staff and

students should be able to engage actively with the PDP process rather than

experiencing it as an imposition.

However, while such an approach can be enabling for students in their

learning, there are tensions that emerge with such a focus on the individual

student. These are often political issues concerned with matters such as: a)

national, institutional or departmental PDP policies; b) access to PDP records;

and c) academic or vocationally driven approaches. These issues can

become dissolved in the instantiation of PDP in terms of the overall focus on

the individual and the need to get such a policy translated into action,

especially via the increasing reliance on virtual learning environments (VLEs).

The nature of any VLE defines the nature of the learning process via provision

of tools and templates for actions. All too often, the learning process can be

subtly moulded as an instrumental rather than a critical process. Learning in

this context can become a process of managing information (including

personal information) rather than discovery, insight and growth. Thus, as

some have suggested, this has enabled a managerial model of learning to be

surreptitiously substituted for the dialogic and critical model which

characterises the ideal of learning in higher education (Lambier and

Ramaekers, 2006).

Others have pointed towards the tensions that arise in the different uses to

which PDP is put. Three ‘ideal types’, encapsulating the attitudes of different

subject or discipline areas, have been distilled. The first ideal type, the

professional, is strongly governed by the requirements stipulated by


professional and statutory bodies such as specific healthcare professional

bodies. The second, employment, includes both a general orientation to

graduate employment and also specific work placement during study. This

model is associated with areas such as management and business, sport and

leisure, and those areas of applied science and engineering where the course

focus is primarily towards employment rather than discipline. The final model,

academic, is focused on the academic development of the student,

incorporating metacognitive skills and those of the specific subject discipline.

Humanities and social sciences predominate in the academic. The model also

includes some areas of pure science where the emphasis is more on subject

understanding (Clegg and Bradley, 2006).

The aforementioned tensions in PDP were drawn out and articulated in

interviews conducted with staff and students in the social sciences in one

recent study. (Moir, Di Domenico et al, 2008). One major aspect of this is the

extent to which PDP is dealt with on an institutionwide basis and its

relevance for social science. In effect, this is an issue of generality versus

specificity. However, this warrants closer inspection in terms of the way that

PDP can, at a broad level, appear to be related to the issue of enhancing

employability, which some staff do not see as their subject in the sense that it

is not an academic matter as such. On the other hand, there are members of

staff who have suggested that PDP is something that could be used to

encourage reflexivity, which they see as a key academic skill for social

science students. A key issue that cuts across the above practical concerns is

that of ensuring that the ‘personal’ nature of the process stays with the

student, while ensuring engagement in order to bring about the stated aims of

PDP. On the one hand, it is something that is within the individual student’s

control; on the other hand, it needs to be accessible to allow staff to assess its

impact.

However, it is also clear that while PDP is almost universally accepted in

principle, the perceptions of implementation raise some problematic practical

issues. Perhaps this is not to be entirely unexpected given that PDP has to

function as a public institutional quality enhancement measure related to such


themes as employability and the development of graduate attributes, and also

as something that is private and personal to the student and within his or her

control. It is precisely this tension between an advocacy of principle versus

practice where political matters come into play. A discourse focused on

personal development is something that is almost universally agreed upon as

beneficial in principle. However, it is when people come to flesh out and

specify what this means in practice that political matters are at stake. This is

the point at which there has to be a commitment to action and where

responsibility for those actions is apportioned.

One of the central tenets of a focus on analysing discourse is the examination

of the variable deployment of such discourse and its ideological effects. When

considering the discourse of PDP, it is clear that while there is a positive

connotation with the notion of personal development, this is not simply about

a neutral inner process in isolation, but rather is related to wider political and

policyrelated issues. Thus there is often a concern with the notion of

individual selfdirection and planning related to politicoeconomic aims such

as employability and improving the nature of graduates as future employees

in terms of national competitiveness in the face of a globalised knowledge

driven economy.

There is a clear tension here for some between what they regard as the

academic nature of personal development, leading to personal growth and the

concomitant contribution to an educated citizenry, and the underlying national

imperative that requires knowledge linked to economic wealth creation.

However, in an era of mass higher education, it is often the latter that is a

priority for governments. This political dimension to PDP can be lost when

located inside the practical matters associated with education as an inner

directed process. Once set within this discourse, the practicalities of such

matters as curricular design, delivery and assessment come into play.

Moreover, if PDP is viewed as being driven by students themselves, then the

political dimension dissolves away as they engage in the practicalities of the

educational process. An innerdirected focus is not one that usually leads to a

reflexive engagement with the political nature of PDP and the location of


agency within the individual. Learning the process of PDP becomes the end in

itself in an instrumentally driven fashion. In this way, learning is depoliticised

in the sense that its purpose is driven down to the level of the personal.

However, without sounding overly critical of such an approach, it is clear that

‘good’ teaching can prevent this from happening through lecturer–student

relationships which can foster a sense of development beyond the confines of

technical procedures (for example, eportfolios).

In order to take up a more dynamic approach to PDP, the approach of Carr

and Kemmis (1986) can be applied in the sense of adopting ‘research into

one’s own practice’ (p 191). Here, the notion of the insider’s vantage point is

crucial in thinking through how PDP can be applied to subjectbased teaching,

and this is surely a rich vein to tap for those in the social sciences. Hence, a

critical social science approach can offer students an awareness of how their

aims and purposes can be asserted in an emancipatory way (Carr and

Kemmis, 1986: 136). This approach chimes with that of John Mezirow (1991)

who argues that transformational learning can occur through a process

involving a ‘disorientating dilemma’ followed by critical reflection and new

interpretations of experience. In applying this to PDP in higher education, the

aim should be to encourage students to examine their personal assumptions

and explore new possibilities. Learning therefore arises through such

examinations and new idea formulation. Given the aforementioned point

about active learning, it is apparent that universities are changing the way

learning takes place and lectures are giving way, to some extent, to methods

of discovery that yield transformational learning.

Web 2.0 as a way forward?

With the above aim in mind, perhaps an ideal goal for some would be for

students to step into the world of Web 2.0 learning as a step back from the

more instrumental modes of learning promoted via the eportfolios associated

with PDP. Certainly within sociology there may be many who would wish to

break ranks with the more avowedly vocational rhetoric associated with mass

higher education. PDP in this mould is associated with public sociology, with


the ideal of a critical and educated citizenry. This may seem an attractive and

attainable prospect through the enhancement of learning via various Web 2.0

tools. After all, the hallmark of these is their openness, scope for collaboration

and creativity. There are differing stages in the adoption of these across

higher education institutions and departments but it is clear that the ‘virtual

university’ is with us to some extent or another. However, as Brabazon (2007)

tellingly points out:

Being a student of higher education at the moment is like living in

someone else’s iPod. The transference from a manufacturing to an

informationdriven economy necessitates permanent reskilling. The

cost of labour market flexibility is educational standards and scholarly

excellence.

(Brabazon, 2007: 163)

In sociology, if we are to avoid the reduction of student learning to that of the

status of an index of employability, then it is clear that we must harness the

capabilities of Web 2.0 in such a way that we are engaged in ensuring that

scholarship is made the engine of PDP rather than its contribution to the

student as a ‘future worker’.

Beer and Burrows (2007) point the way for us to consider a sociology both of

and in Web 2.0. This kind of reflexive project is one that both educators and

students can engage in as an enterprise in scholarship. As they put it:

There seems to us to be at least three interrelated issues that the Web

2.0 phenomena invokes that require sociological engagement: the

changing relations between the production and consumption of content; the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public domain; and, our main focus here, the emergence of a new rhetoric

of ‘democratisation’.

(Beer and Burrows, 2007: para 3.1)


This affords the opportunity for the consideration of PDP in a completely new

way: one that not only involves the development and archiving of skills but

also a sociological reflection upon the public actions being performed. In this

way, students can come to grips with Mills’ (1959) ‘sociological imagination’

as they consider what the act of posting personal information signifies. It is

here that students could be encouraged to move into the realm beyond a

psychological notion of ‘development’ to one that looks at how social practices

are themselves developing via the web. This is one of the great advantages of

the sharing capacity of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. The blurred relationship

between consumption and production of wikis, social networks, blogs, mash

ups, etc throws into relief sociological questions about what kinds of

information are routinely posted, accumulated, traded and shared. Of

particular interest from the point of view of PDP is the way in which what

would have been considered private information is now made public in an

increasing trend of the codification of habitus (Burrows and Gane, 2006).

However, despite an accompanying rhetoric of empowering and democratic

openness, Beer and Burrows (2007) also add a counterpoint for

consideration, primarily an issue concerning access and surveillance. Who is

watching? The university? Future employers? And is this developing or

empowering anyone?

To return to the Humphrey Lyttelton anecdote, if the virtual university is going

in the direction of utilising Web 2.0 resources, then it is of interest to sociology

to be on the inside, so to speak, investigating both the pedagogic possibilities

as well as engaging in a reflexive sociological project about these resources.

We may not be sure where this will take us but it is worth pitching a

sociological contribution. This affords the opportunity of not only engagement

with the technology but also insight into what kinds of personal profiles and

social practices students share: a vernacular sociology of the kinds of things

that people find interesting about one another (Hardey and Burrows, 2008).

There is also a sociological concern with where people go on the web and

how they negotiate their way through the virtual landscape. This is indeed an


education for personal development as well as being about the relationship

between the self and the social world through the intermediary of the web.

Conclusion

The emergence of a discourse of personal development related to education

has intensified in recent years. On the face of it, this may at first appear a

welcome development. The fastpaced and evolving nature of the knowledge

economy has led many to argue for a more flexible workforce capable of

keeping pace by planning and managing their own learning, developing

themselves and managing their own career. Mass higher education has come

to be regarded as an essential means of meeting the demands of the

knowledge economy, and students are urged to engage in PDP through

building up portfolios via VLEs in order to make themselves more adaptable

and marketable through this process.

At the same time, there has been an explosion in the growth of personal

information placed upon the web. Personal accounts of experiences,

encounters and events, likes and dislikes, biographies and aspirations are all

there to be found. This discourse of the personal and the interest others have

in engaging with the material sharing and trading of discourse is a sociological

phenomenon that can be both a resource for study and a pedagogical tool

that can be utilised in terms of learning by doing. Students in sociology can

engage in PDP in a way that is therefore both in and about this personal

discourse mediated through the virtual world. It is akin to walking forward

while looking backwards, both engaged and reflexive. You may be able to put

one foot in front of the other not knowing exactly where you are going, but at

least you are aware of the ground you have covered.


References

Beer D and Burrows R (2007). ‘Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: some initial

considerations. Sociological Research Online, 12(5). Available at:

www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html.

Brabazon T (2007). The University of Google: education in the (post)

information age. Hampshire: Ashgate.

Burrows D and Gane N (2006). ‘Geodemographics, software and class’,

Sociology, 40(5), pp 793–812.

Carr W and Kemmis S (1986). Becoming critical. London: Falmer Press.

Clegg S and Bradley S (2006). ‘Models of personal development planning:

practice and processes’. British Educational Research Journal, 32(1), pp 57–

76.

Dearing R (1997). Higher education in the learning society. The report of the

National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education. Middlesex: NCIHE

Publications.

Gough DA, Kiwan D, Sutcliffe K, Simpson D and Houghton N (2003). A

systematic map and synthesis review of the effectiveness of personal

development planning for improving student learning. London: EPPICentre,

Social Science Research Unit, p 2.

Hardey M and Burrows R (2008). ‘Cartographies of knowing capitalism and

the changing jurisdiction of empirical sociology’ in N Fielding, RM Lee and G

Blank (eds) The Sage handbook of online research methods. London: Sage.

Lambier B and Ramaekers S (2006). ‘The Limits of ‘Blackboard’ are the limits

of my world: on the changing concepts of the university and its students’. E

Learning, 3, pp 544–551.

Mezirow J (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San

Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.

http://http//www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html


Mills. C. W (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University

Press

Moir J, Di Domenico C, Sutton P and Vertigans S (2008). ‘Personal

development planning in sociology and social science: the Scottish higher

education context’. Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences 1(2).

WilsonMedhurst S (2005a). ‘Supporting student development using reflective

writing’. Investigations in University Teaching and Learning, 2(2), pp 89–92.

WilsonMedhurst S (2005b). ‘Using assessment to support employability

awareness and development’. Investigations in University Teaching and

Learning, 3(1), pp 72–79, 20. Available at:

www.eliss.org.uk/CurrentIssue/ViewArticle/tabid/72/itemid/27/pubtabid/73/rep

modid/411/Default.aspx.

Winch P (1958). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy.

London: Routledge, pp 93–94.

http://http//www.eliss.org.uk/CurrentIssue/ViewArticle/tabid/72/itemid/27/pubtabid/73/repmodid/411/Default.aspx

Documents

The personal, the platform and the political