Alice MacGillivray is an associate faculty member in the School of Leadership Studies, and the School of Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University, Victoria BC Canada (alice@4km.net).

“What is the Real Opportunity” is a stimulating, collaborative activity designed to help graduate students develop and refine applied research questions. At its best, it showcases deep listening, critical thinking, collaboration, constructive feedback, reframing, and reflection: skills important throughout the research process. In this chapter, I focus on action-oriented research. One reason I appreciate this activity is the frequent surprises; students are amazed when “unlikely” (in their minds) group members ask the most powerful questions or provide the most innovative insights. Following preparatory tasks, the activity takes 45-60 minutes, is followed by a debrief, and can run several times face-to-face or online.

Rationale

I hope my post-secondary students will learn and apply learning in meaningful ways. Some of my work is with Royal Roads University (RRU) in western Canada, where we encourage scholarship informing practice, and vice versa. Using RRU as an example, intended action is implicit in sample thesis titles below (retrieved from VIURRSpace, December, 2020). Full citations are in Appendix A; Different questions for each could be valid in different contexts:

• Testing infrared technology to locate active migratory bird nests;
• Tsartlip First Nations analysis of primary care equity and access;
• Engaging people with lived experience of opioid use;
• Leading the way to promote self-determination of individuals with autism spectrum disorder;
• Cultural survival among Syrians in Cairo: the role of Syrian educators and educational centers; and
• Gamification in nursing jurisprudence.

Many RRU graduate students conduct action-oriented research. Some help their own organizations move forward with challenges, where they have intimate knowledge of the setting and probable assumptions about what needs to be done. Students have a lot to learn, and—in some cases—a lot to “unlearn” to reduce bias.

The research questions they ask may initially be too broad or vague or they may not reflect the actual intent of the inquiry. They may sound more like interview questions than research questions. The question may not fit with methodology (e.g., asking about lived experience in a statistical study) or with methodologies used in the school or department (sometimes there are restrictions).

“What is the Real Opportunity” provides students with space to deeply explore their initial research ideas and questions, and with new insights from their peers. Students use a structured brainstorming approach in small groups to understand, constructively explore and refine the nature of research challenges.

One of my original inspirations for this activity was Wenger’s social learning theory (SLT), which came out of Xerox PARC’s Institute for Research on Learning (Wenger, 1998, p. 14). SLT emphasizes learning embedded in social contexts and relevant practice. There is overlap with Bandura’s (1977) work, but the individual is emphasized less, and social contexts foregrounded.

Overview

This section includes how to prepare for and conduct the activity, and optional assessment.

To Prepare for the Activity

The activity helps to transform research ideas into improved research questions. It follows (a) learning about good questions in general; (b) research questions in particular; and (c) students’ reflections on their research plans. The activity is described to students in advance. I explain they will be in small groups, and that each group will have a timekeeper and facilitator (chosen in the group).

Confidentiality must be emphasized, as must deep listening, powerful questioning, and listening for understanding rather than for response.

Organize students into groups of 4 or 5; face-to-face groups can be slightly larger than those online. The groups should be diverse to encourage different perspectives. This diversity could include elements such as gender, ethnicity, field of work, years of experience, country, Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) profile or previous education. In person, they sit around tables; online, use breakout groups. A hand-out (Appendix C) includes timing for each step; review this with students before moving into the activity.

Option: each group has a designated process observer, which can help people reflect on successes and areas for improvement. This diversifies the ways of learning open to students (and can also provide an ethnographic experience).

The Activity Process

1. Each person gives a one-minute overview of their question and intent; others listen. An overview might be: “I work at X and I’m interested in power. In our organization, it seems front-line workers are rarely included or heard. I believe that impacts the quality of decisions. My draft question is: “Why don’t executives listen to people who actually talk to customers?”

Figure 1

Sample research question design factors likely to be at play.

2. After listening to overviews of each research opportunity, the group chooses one “opportunity” for round-one focus.
3. The person with chosen opportunity (PCO) provides more depth; others listen and take notes.
4. Everyone can interact. Group members probe and clarify without providing solutions (facilitator watches for that). If the challenge above were chosen, questions might include: “What got you interested in power?”, “Could you tell us about a decision you think was flawed?”, “Why do you want to work in your own organization?”, and “Where are you situated and how might that affect your research?”
5. Everyone pauses quietly for one minute. Encourage relaxation and reflection.
6. The PCO listens to others brainstorming. The brainstorming might relate to the current framing of the opportunity, the PCO’s passions, concerns about bias, scope, suggested wording changes, links to theories…
7. The PCO comments on ideas they have heard, and shares thoughts about what else could be helpful.
8. In a final brainstorm round, the PCO hears new/refined research question ideas from their colleagues. Given the example above, improved questions might be; “How might more diverse input improve operational decision-making in Company X?” or “What are the varied ways of understanding relationships between power and decision-making in Company X?”

Option: With different groups of students, you may want to adjust details. For example, students working in English as an additional language may need more time for each step.

Option: Different rounds of this activity may be scheduled, or students can do that on their own. In my experience, there is multidirectional learning and support so that once they have experienced one or two rounds, they can move ahead more effectively with their own work.

In the debrief, I begin with the PCO. How did they experience the process? Did it help their question development? How? Sometimes the student will start to emphasize content; when this happens, I encourage them to come back to the experience. If the group has had an observer, they add to the conversation. I then engage others; how did they experience the process? What was it like to focus on listening without speaking? Was the one-minute pause difficult? Valuable? How might the experience influence their own work?

There are many possibilities for integrating this activity with other activities or assessments. As examples:

• There could be a series of similar brainstorms in groups or pairs to deal with research questions and methodologies, sub-questions, data gathering methods, and so on.
• Brainstorm results could feed into group presentations assessed for content, critical thinking, and communication.
• Have students rate their research questions before and after this activity.

Assessment

For those wishing to assess or use discussion questions, the following ideas may be helpful:

• experience a process to inform dialogue with inquiry team members, partners, clients or sponsors in their upcoming research;
• develop curiosity about peers’ possible research;
• think critically about which draft proposals to work on, given limited resources;
• practice the art of powerful questioning;
• develop reflective patience;
• work towards discovering deep, researchable challenges and opportunities rather than symptoms of problems;
• explore some of their own biases and skills (such as listening to understand rather than to jump in with ideas);
• later, reflect on how the process of working with others’ challenges can support learning about their own research.

The development of this activity came through practice and collaborative learning with colleagues. The resources in Appendix B shed light on the activity through various lenses.

Reflections

This activity can be adapted for topics other than research question design. For example, I have used it to explore seemingly intractable challenges in organizations or communities. Things I have learned over the years with “What is the Real Opportunity” include:

• Divergent thinking is important before narrowing a question.
• The activity is designed for complex challenge research more than technical challenges best solved by experts.
• Specialists may resist social learning in diverse groups. They may relate to the End of Modernity (Ernst, 2016 Chapter 1). Examples such as climate change can illustrate the need for collaboration across boundaries.
• Prevent/mitigate resistance to structure in the first round. Groups that follow the structure usually find it valuable.
• The activity can exemplify elements of non-hierarchical leadership as practice (Raelin, 2003).
• It isn’t unusual to have “AHA” moments, especially around: a) the value of deep listening; b) the power of thoughtful question design; c) the untapped expertise in the room; and d) the value of “unlikely” participants providing surprising insights.
• There is potential for this activity to open the door to new ways of thinking and working. It sometimes spills over into ongoing research collaborations.
• The fleshing out of “real opportunities” is a multi-faceted process. For students’ research design work, it often involves many considerations as illustrated in Figure 1 for an action-oriented, applied research project.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Ernst, D. (2016). Personal and organizational transformation towards sustainability: walking a twin-path. Business Expert Press.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press.

Appendix A: Sample Theses with Intent for Change from Royal Roads University

Gustafson, B. (2020). Testing infrared technology to locate active migratory bird nests.  Publication No. 28150654) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Hastings, H. (2020). Tsartlip First Nations analysis of primary care equity and access. Publication No. 27829968) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Ragan, C. (2020). Engaging people with lived experience of opioid use. (Publication No. 27836734) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Ryan, J. (2016). Leading the way to promote self-determination of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. (Publication No. 10154341) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Stanevicius, A. (2019). Cultural survival among Syrians in Cairo: the role of Syrian educators and educational centers. (Publication No. 13859121) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Trimblett, S. (2016). Gamification in nursing jurisprudence. (Publication No. 10154345) [Master’s thesis, Royal Roads University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Appendix B: References and Resources for Further Learning

Besant, H. (2016). The Journey of Brainstorming. Journal of Transformational Innovation, 2(1), 1–7.

Ernst, D. (2016). Personal and organizational transformation towards sustainability: walking a twin-path (First, Ser. Principles for responsible management education collection). Business Expert Press.

Gillies, R. M. (2019). Promoting academically productive student dialogue during collaborative learning. International Journal of Educational Research, 97, 200–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2017.07.014 (not higher education but some good insights)

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Ser. Learning in doing). Cambridge University Press.

Raelin, J. A. (2003). Creating leaderful organizations: How to bring out leadership in everyone (1st ed.). Berrett-Koehler.

Schein, E. H. (1995). Dialogue and learning. Executive Excellence, 12(4), 3.

Vogt, E. E., Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2003). The art of powerful questions: Catalyzing, insight, innovation, and action. Whole Systems Associates. (practical, plain language guide)

Appendix C: Hand-out: Refining your research plans: What is the Real Opportunity

In your teams, stick with this process.  Structure helps with learning and results.

Ensure you have one or more facilitators to keep time and keep on task (and participate)

Either the person with the research question for focus or colleagues have the floor in each step of the process, except in step 4

1. Each person gives a 1-minute overview of their question and intent (approximate time: 5 minutes).
2. Group decides on which question to work on and a back-up (approximate time: 3 minutes).
3. Person with chosen question provides more depth (approximate time: 5 minutes).
4. Others probe and clarify; do not provide advice or solutions (approximate time: 10 minutes).
5. Think about what you have heard (silence is important for sensemaking) (approximate time: 1 minute).
6. Brainstorm ideas; incorporate principles, theories, or examples from your studies.  Avoid premature convergence (approximate time: 8 minutes).
7. Person comments on what she/he heard and what else they would like (approximate time: 3 minutes).
8. Final brainstorm (approximate time: 5 minutes).

Total minutes: 40 (take a break if your group is smaller and you finish early)