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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper No 3: Qualitative Methods

Module No and Title Module No 20: Cooperative Enquiry

Module Tag PSY_P3_M20

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning Objectives
2. Introduction
3. Skills required for Cooperative Enquiry
4. Procedures that help in improving quality of knowing in cooperative enquiry
5. Phase of Cooperative Enquiry
6. Different forms of Cooperative Enquiry
7. Summary

PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.3: Qualitative Methods

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to
 Know and understand the concept and features of Cooperative Enquiry

 Learn about skills required for Cooperative Enquiry

 Learn about phases and different forms of Cooperative Enquiry

2. Introduction
Co-operative enquiry facilitates the understanding of the world and helps in developing new and
imaginative way of looking at different things. In other words, it is a mode of functioning with people
who have similar interest and concerns. It is an strategy in which there are co-researcher, whose decision-
making and thinking contributes to generating ideas, designing and managing the project and drawing
conclusions from the experience. It is sometimes also called as collaborative enquiry. In Cooperative
enquiry, a group of people get together to investigate the issues of concern and interests. Each member of
the group provides ideas and is part of activity that is being investigated. Each member has the right to
decide the questions that are to be addressed in research. Therefore, each member has a contribution in
the conclusion reached by the cooperative enquiry group.

John Heron first proposed the concept of cooperative enquiry which was later on expanded by Peter
Reason. To do research with people rather than on people is the foremost idea of cooperative inquiry. It
highlights that all co-researchers actively participants in the research decisions.

There are four different types of knowledge that form a research cycle in Cooperative inquiry:
Four types of knowledge

1) Practical knowing

2) Experiential knowing

3) Propositional knowing

4) Presentational knowing

Figure 1: shows four types of knowledge

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a) practical knowing, which includes the knowledge that we get

from doing something and is expressed in terms of skills and
competence.

b) experiential knowing, which includes the information that we get when we have face to face interaction
with other people

c) propositional knowing, which is expressed in informative statements and includes knowing through
ideas and theories.

d) presentational knowing, which includes the representation of experiential knowing in form of story,
dance, movement, drawing and sculpture (Reason, 1999).

There are various defining features of Cooperative Enquiry:

 In the reflection phase all the active subjects are completely immersed in all the decisions about
both method and content.
 There is deliberate interplay between reflection and action.
 In cooperative enquiry there are various procedures that help in improving the quality of
knowing.
 The cooperative enquiry can be both informative and transformative of any aspect of the human
condition that is accessible to a clear body-mind i.e. one that has an open, absolute awareness.

3. Skills required while conducting Cooperative Enquiry

There are some skills that are important while conducting a cooperative enquiry. These are as follows:
1) Being present and open
This skills basically talks about compassion and importance. It also includes openness to new
experiences, classification of our perception of objects and events, so that we can be more participative to
its crucial meaning.

2) Radical practice and congruence.

While doing cooperative enquiry the researcher should have a skill of radical practices and congruence,
which in simply means that the researcher should be aware of the purpose and the outcome, underlying
values, its motives and defining norms. Being aware of any lack of resemblance between these different
features of action and adjusting them accordingly are also included in this skills.

3) Non-attachment and meta-intentionality.

This skill or ability is concerned with the purpose of the research and not with one’s identity and
emotional security in an action. It also includes having various alternative behavior and considering their
probable consequences and implication to the entire situation.

4) Emotional competence.
This skill helps in identifying and managing emotional states in various ways. This skill focuses on
keeping action free from alteration driven by the condition of early years and unprocessed distress.

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4. Procedures that help in improving quality of knowing in Cooperative

Enquiry
According to Peter Reason (1999), there are some procedures that help in improving the quality of
knowing in Cooperative Enquiry. These are as follows:

Procedures for improving quality of knowing

1) Research Cycling

2) Balance of action and reflection

3) Developing critical attention

4) Authentic collaboration

5) Dealing with distress

6) Chaos and Order

Figure 2: shows some procedures for improving quality of knowing in Cooperative enquiry

1. Research cycling

In Cooperative Enquiry there are four phases of enquiry which represent a cycle between action and
reflection. This cycle continues for several times, looking at different angles, trying different ways of
behaving and creating different ideas. The research cycle can be convergent or divergent. When co-
researchers look at the same issues several times in order to gain more details then the research cycling is
convergent. Whereas if co-researchers focus on different issues on successive cycles then the research
cycle is divergent.

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2. Balance of action and reflection

It is advisable to spend more time reflecting in order to assemble together the experiences in the earlier
stages of enquiry and to focus on trying out different actions and reflection, depending on the topic being
investigated is important in later stages.

3. Developing critical attention

The researcher should possess a skill that helps them to look at their experiences with curiosity in order to
understand it in a better way. This ability or skill is developed with the help of research cycling.

4. Authentic collaboration

In Cooperative Enquiry it is important that the co-researchers work in a ways that are collaborative i.e. all
the member should mutual agree to the way of doing the work. In Cooperative enquiry group it is not
important that everyone has same role such as one person may have more knowledge about the subject,
other person may help group to learn together, etc. In order to facilitate equal contributions within a
group, there should be a rotation of formal leadership around the group.

5. Dealing with distress

In Cooperative enquiry, while the researcher is ready to investigate their lives and experiences in-depth
and in details, they also include the things or experiences that the researcher wants to avoid because they
are uncomfortable. So the group needs to help the person to reduce their distress of grief, anger and fear.
It is likely that the findings will be distorted by the buried emotions, if the group does not pay attention to
the management of distress.

6. Chaos and order

In Cooperative enquiry there should be balance between disorder and order. In the enquiry, divergence
thoughts and expression is likely to descend into confusion, vagueness, disorder and perhaps chaos, only
when the group is creative and open to put all at risk to reach out for truth beyond fear and collusion, then
once (Reason, 1999).

5. Phases of Cooperative Enquiry

There are four phases of reflection and action through which co-operative enquiry:

Phase 1: In the first phase of Cooperative Enquiry, a group of researchers join together to investigate the
decided area of human activity. The member of this group or co-researchers may be anyone who wishes
to study a desired area of interest such as it may be a professional who wish to explore a particular area of
practice, or families who wish to find new styles of life, or a sick people who want to investigate the
impact of particular healing practices. All the member of the group decides an area of focus of their

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enquiry and agree on it. Then they form together a set of

questions they want to study and decide on the method to be
used for investigating this crucial idea in action, through practical experience. They create and agree to a
set of procedures for collecting and recording data from their experience: audio or video recording, diaries
or self assessment rating scale or a feedback from the clients, after they have decided about the method to
be used (Reason, 1999).

For example, a group of health visitors were invited in south west England inorder to form an enquiry
group to explore the sources of stress in their work (Traylen, 1988). After some resistance to the idea that
they could be ‘researchers’, They decided to focus on the problems such as child abuse, depression and
drug taking in the families they visit which are unexpressed and unexplored.

Phase 2: In second phase of Cooperative Enquiry, the co-subjects who were earlier the co-researchers
focuses on the action they have agreed, observe and record the process and outcomes of their own and
each other's action and experience. For having a better understanding of their experience, they simply
watch what it is that happens to them; they may start trying out new forms of action later on. Inorder to
see weather practice conform to their original ideas or not, they notice the enhancement of experience
carefully and they hold lightly the theoretical frame from which they started (Reason, 1999).

Phase 3: In the third phase of Cooperative Enquiry, it is a standard of enquiry method. The co-subjects
becomes completely engrossed in and occupied with their action and experience. In order to see what is
going on in a new way, they develop a degree of openness that is free from any preconceptions. They may
sometimes become so much involved in what they are doing that they forget that they are the part of the
enquiry group. This deep engagement in experiences provides us a new understanding that results from
the enquiry and that makes it different from other convectional research. (Reason, 1999).

Phase 4: co-researcher may reframe these ideas of interest or may reject them and pose new questions, In
the final phase of Cooperative Enquiry. They may focus on the same or different aspects of the overall
enquiry or they may decide for the other cycle of action. The group may focus on improving its enquiry
procedure, or ways of gathering data (Reason, 1999).

6. Different forms of co-operative enquiry

There are two types of groups in cooperative enquiry. One group is the one that is familiar with the
method of enquiry, which selects an area of enquiry and invites others to join who are interested in the
topic. This group is set up by one or two initiating researchers, where some initiating researchers may be
completely immersed with the field of study and some initiating researcher may be external to the focus
of the group.

There are various forms of enquiry that focus on the practices or culture within a social role. These
include:

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Different Form of Cooperative Enquiry

On basis of social role On basis of where action phase is focused

Same role enquiry Inside enquiry

Reciprocal role enquiry Outside enquiry

Counterpartal role enquiry

Mixed role enquiry

Figure 3: Shows different forms of Cooperative Enquiry

1) Same role enquiry

The enquiry in which every member of the group has same role such as health visitor and are concerned
with the characteristics of their practice within the role.

2) Reciprocal role enquiry

The enquiry in which more than one people interact within a role of equal status such as partner, friends
and enquiry into the interaction.

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3) Counterpartal role enquiry

The enquiry which deals with the relationship between practitioner and client and focuses on what this
relationship is trying to achieve.

4) Mixed role enquiry

This enquiry deals with several different kinds of practitioners. They may find out similarities and
differences in their various modality of practice. If they work together, then they may pay attention to
aspects of this, as in the enquiry involving various complementary therapists and general medical
practitioners, investigating issues of power and conflict involved in their collaboration (Reason, 1991).

Different forms of Enquiry can also be divided on the basis of where the action phase is focused.

5) Inside enquiries

Inside enquiries take place when all the action phases occur in the same place within whole group. This
includes two types of enquires: group interaction inquiries and group-based inquiries.

a) Group interaction enquiry is concerned with what goes on inside the enquiry group such as members
are studying their individual and collective experience of group process.

b) group-based enquiry- when all action phases occur in similar space but in some phases there may be
paired or small group activities done side by side or each person doing their own individual activity side
by side with everyone else.

6) Outside enquiry

When the group member working or personal lives are focused outside the group meeting it is called
outside enquiry. In this enquiry the group members came together in reflection phase inorder to share the
data, make meaning of it, and modify their thinking and planning the next action phase in light of all this.
Group members separate at each action phase.

8. SUMMARY
 Co-operative enquiry facilitates the understanding of the world and helps in developing new and
creative way of looking at different things.

 There are four different types of knowledge that forms a research cycle in Cooperative inquiry
practical knowing, experiential knowing, propositional knowing and presentational knowing.

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 There are some skills that are important while

conducting a cooperative enquiry. These skills include:
Being present and open, Radical practice and congruence, Non-attachment and meta-
intentionality and Emotional competence

 Research cycling, Balance of action and reflection, developing critical attention, authentic
collaboration, dealing with distress and Chaos and order, these are some procedures that help in
improving the quality of knowing in Cooperative Enquiry.

 There are four phases of reflection and action through which a co-operative inquiry cycles.

 Different forms of Cooperative enquiry includes: social role inquiry, counterpartal role inquiry,
mixed role inquiry, outside inquiry, inside inquiry, transpersonal inquiry, open boundary inquiry
and closed boundary inquiry.

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MODULE No. 20: Cooperative Enquiry