Transformative Learning: Insights from First Year Students’ Experience

Abstract

Drawing on a small qualitative study, this chapter provides insights into how four first year undergraduate students’ perceptions of themselves as learners changed throughout their first year of a Bachelor of Counselling degree. The changes identified by students include growth in confidence and awareness of the need to take responsibility and ownership for their own learning. The focus of the study was deemed important as the ways students understand the learning process influences the way they approach learning. A transformative, relational approach to learning as embodied knowing often brings disequilibrium and doubt for students who expect an accumulation of knowledge and skills (Mezirow J, Transformative dimensions of adult learning, 1991 Mezirow 1991). Acknowledging that one’s choice of research methodology is itself reflective of one’s ontological, anthropological and epistemological assumptions, the visual methodology known as PhotoVoice was chosen for its ability to honour the participant’s voice, respect human beings as interpreters of the world and encompass research as a tool for storytelling. The chapter includes a brief outline of PhotoVoice methodology as well as how participants engaged with their chosen visual images to communicate their responses to questions such as if their perceptions of being a learner had changed, what characteristics of the learning journey had been particularly helpful and how they knew if they had learned something. In conclusion, the chapter identifies possible ramifications for tertiary teaching as well as the potential within a PhotoVoice experience for transformative learning.