Making the familiar strange – a research pedagogy for practice

ABSTRACT

This paper engages with the pedagogical needs of researching professionals undertaking a professional or practice-based doctorate. It first undertakes a critical exploration of the literature and then explores how research supervision can address the emergent needs of the advanced practitioner as they undertake research at the doctoral level for the first time. Taking a practice theory perspective, the practitioner can be considered as approaching their programme already engaged with the knowledge objects that arise in their self-authored practice. The supervisor's role is to encourage the dissociation of the practitioner from both practice and object to allow them to critically engage with them – in effect to make the familiar strange. This critical engagement is encouraged through a learning framework that supports the development of knowledge beyond disciplinary constraints i.e. through the integration of knowledge from contributing perspectives on the object and with appropriate boundaries to the enquiry. The personal and relational aspects of the supervisory engagement must also be considered as well as the contribution of the practitioner's own experience of work. The engagement is facilitated by a high ‘quality’ supervisory relationship sufficiently robust to allow reflective dialogue on these issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral supervision
• learning relationship
• knowledge objects
• professional doctorate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.