Perspectives On Professional Practice and Knowledge

Professional Wisdom: An Alternative to Technical Rationality

ByTerence O’Sullivan

Wisdom as a Virtue

McBeath and Webb (2002: 1022) state that “Aristotle distinguishes between two classes of virtue: intellectual and moral. Under the former fall wisdom, prudence and understanding which are acquired by instruction which needs time and experience which add up to wisdom…”

How This Lecture Fits with the Unit This lecture concerns the limitations of scientific and technical knowledge in dealing with uncertainty of the social world.

It puts forward an alternative to “technical practice”.

It is about becoming “a critical person” and a “wise practitioner”.

Technical Rationality

Schon (1991:21) states that

“According to the model of technical rationality […] professional activity consists [of] instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique.”

Professional Wisdom

Wisdom will be associated with exercising reflective judgement and becoming a “critical person”.

It is an alternative to “scientific or technical rationality”.

It contrasts with the “anything goes” of post modernism in that “wisdom” implies that some judgements and some uses of knowledge are better than others. (Barnett, 1994: page 144)

Practice wisdom is “a particular type of professional expertise involving the capacity for wise judgements in uncertain situations.” (O’Sullivan, 2005: page 222)

Becoming A Critical Person

critical action

critical reason

critical self-reflection

critical person

Barnett, 1997:page 105

The argument presented in O’Sullivan (2005) is that:

‘practice wisdom’ has a place in contemporary social work.

to have this place ‘practice wisdom’ needs to be critical, accountable and knowledge based.

‘practice wisdom’ requires three conditions to be present.

not all experienced practitioners necessarily have practice wisdom.

Three Requirements of Practice Wisdom

Practice Wisdom needs to be critical, accountable and knowledge based and requires,

Distinctive knowledge production processes

Ability to make reasoning explicit

Credible and valuable knowledge

(O’Sullivan, 2005)

Distinctive Knowledge Production Processes

situationrepresentation of

situation

framing processes

application processes

stocks of knowledge

learning processes

Critical Control Through Metacognition

Ability to Make Reasoning Explicit

The need for accountable practice

Two types of reasoning (intuitive and analytical)

Which type of reasoning is most effective depends on the task characteristics (including, degree of uncertainty, number of cues and time available)

Explaining Intuitive Reasoning

Intuition is the use of tacit knowledge and emotions to make judgements and decisions without deliberation

Importance of intuition in rapid decision making

The need at times of trace back and locate the basis of intuitive judgements and decisions

Explaining Analytical Reasoning

Analytical reasoning involves the capacity to analyse and synthesize information into hypotheses about particular situations.

Analytical reasoning should be easier to explain than intuitive reasoning.

To be able to carryout analytical reasoning requires flexible conceptual frameworks.

The inability to explain reasoning maybe a symptom of the lack of such frameworks.

Credible and Valuable Knowledge

Credible knowledge as knowledge that is seemingly worthy of belief by self and relevant others.

Valuable forms of knowledge are regarded as those that promote reflective judgment.

The work of Jurgen Habermas helps to analyse what is meant here by credible and valuable knowledge.

Knowledge and Human InterestsThe Work of Jurgen Habermas

Instrumental forms of knowing

Communicative forms of knowing

Emancipatory forms of knowing

To predict and control nature, the environment and human beings.

To mutually understand the meanings that are injected into the world by human beings.

To see ourselves in radically different ways.

Instrumental Knowledge

As has been stated, instrumental forms of knowing aim to predict and control nature, the environment and human beings.

Barnett (1994:14) states that although reflection is a necessary component of communicative and emancipatory forms of knowing, it is merely a contingent aspect of instrumental knowing.

Communicative KnowledgeCommunicative knowledge is created in situations where there is ‘unconstrained exchange’ and ‘participants have to take into account each others viewpoint’. (Barnett, 1994: 147)

Understandings are arrived at through collective exchange between freely associating individuals in contexts free from the distorting effects of power. (Blaug, 1995: 431)

Knowledge achieved through sincere endeavours to reach agreed understandings, is of value when all those affected have been encouraged to speak, all have been listened to and all allowed to question others. (Blaug, 1995: 431).

Emancipatory Knowledge

“Emancipation is achieved through a combination of knowledge about the social and psychological environment, a personal understanding of that knowledge and critical self-reflection, so that through that understanding one can see new possibilities for one’s own life world.” (Barnett, 1994 147)

“The value of emancipatory knowledge is its potential to lead to changed understandings and free knowers from constrained understandings.” (O’Sullivan, 2005: 233)

Wise Practice or Evidence Based Practice

A certain ambiguity about the term “evidence”.

Does it mean “that which proves an unknown fact”.

Or does it mean “ the reasons for believing something is true”.

The latter meaning allows for a debate about what constitutes evidence.

Practice Wisdom and Effectiveness

Instrumental knowledge is solely concerned with effectiveness.

“Social work is a dual-aspect activity.” (Fraser, 1995 cited in Blaug 1995: 427) “While care has an instrumental component, it is predominantly a communicative activity.” (Blaug 1995: 427)

The limitations of evidence based practice mean that the findings of empirical research cannot be directly used in a routine way as substantive theory (or in Barnett’s terms un–reflected instrumental knowledge).

The limitations of evidence based practice

The results of empirical research have an important role in informing practitioners conceptual frameworks.

There is general agreement on the scarcity of proven techniques in social work (Trinder and Reynolds, 2000).

But disagreement over whether this is due to the intrinsic nature of social work or lack of sufficiently scientific approach.

Schon states that “in the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing “messes” incapable of technical solution.” (1995: 42)

Three Dispositions Towards Knowledge

Absolute knowledge exists and its source is some outside authority.

It is not possible to formulate rational and dependable knowledge and feels excused from the responsibility of trying.

Acknowledges the need to abandon the search for ultimate truth but not the need to pursue understanding.

(adapted from Fook at al., 2000: 218)

Organisations and Wise PracticeWise practice involves balancing, weighing, integrating what is known and making judgments.

How far does increased regulation of social work practice undermine practitioner capacity to act wisely?

Do organisational culture, ethos and practice affect practitioners’ capacity to act wisely?

How far has the growth of managerialiam been detrimental to the possibility of acting wisely?

How can organisations build, enable and sustain wise practice?

End Words“Making well-considered decisions requires a sound awareness of the problem and the ability to anticipate the consequences of possible decisions and actions. It does not mean acting on the basis of feeling or intuition alone […]. Rather, it suggests that [well considered decisions] be subject to the same process of critical reflection through the framework of ethical reasoning as are all our thoughts and observations. This, we suggest, is mature professionalism.” (Gray and McDonald, 2006: 17)

Gray and McDonalds ‘Mature professionalism’ maybe another name for practice wisdom.

A Wise Person in the Situation

“Therefore, saying that workers should stick to evidence and well developed, tested models of practice is only partially helpful in practice, because they have to discover and ease themselves into a situation … and embody their knowledge within their personality in an interpersonal relationship as they become the 'wise person' in that situation. (Payne, 2007; 91-2)

List of ReferencesBarnett, R. (1994) The Limits of Competence: Knowledge, Higher Education and Society, Buckingham: Open University.

Barnett, R. (1997) Higher Education: A Critical Business, Buckingham: Open University.

Blaug, R. (1995) ‘Distortion of the Face to Face: Communicative Reason and Social Work Practice‘, British Journal of Social Work 25(4): 423-39.

Fook, J., and Ryan, M. and Hawkins, L. (2000) Professional Expertise: Practice, Theory and Education for Working with Uncertainty, London: Whiting and Birch.

Gray, M. and McDonald, C. (2006) ‘Pursuing Good Practice? The Limits of Evidence–based Practice’, Journal of Social Work 6(1): 7-20.

McBeath, G. and Webb. S. A. (2002) ‘Virtue Ethics and Social Work: Being Lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty’, British Journal of Social Work, 32, 1015-1036.

O’Sullivan, T. (2005) ‘Some Theoretical Propositions on the Nature of Practice Wisdom’, Journal of Social Work, 5(2): 221-242.

Payne, M. (2007) 'Performing as a 'wise person' in social work practice' Practice, 19(2) pp. 85-96.

Rooney, D. and McKenna, B. (2008) ‘Wisdom in public management: looking for a Sociology of Wise Practice’, Public Administration Review, 68(4) 708-721.

Schon, D. A (1995) The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action, Aldershot: Arena.

Trinder, L. and Reynolds, S. (eds) (2000) Evidence-based Practice: A Critical Appraisal, Oxford: Blackwell Science.