Digital Reflexive Bricolage

Introduction:

Research aim:

This digital reflexive bricolage aims to assist me to make critical reflection on my emerging identities as well as behaviour that I have developed through implementing the past experience into current professional practices. While discussing researcher identity in critical way, the management professional body that I have chosen in this reflective study is CIPD (Character Institute of Professional Development). The aim behind choosing this professional body is that this professional body is associated with such a career that I always would like to pursue in the near future. This reflexive bricolage has purpose to make critical analysis of my behaviour as well as professional and personal skills with using appropriate approaches. I believe that I have important behaviour and characteristic features such as analyst, judgemental and interactive that will assist me to shape my professional skills that are required to get a good job opportunity in CIPD. Through conducting literate review, I will use proper theoretical approaches that will assist me to analyse my identify as well as behaviour to understand my strength and weakness. In addition to the, this reflexive bricolage also aims to discuss the research method, in which I am going to use reflective auto ethnography that makes critical analysis of my action. In research method, I am going to use JOHARI window in terms of analysing as well as justifying the database that I am going to use in this study.

Literature review:

The main purpose of this literature review is to analyse my researcher identity, behaviour and activities with using proper approaches such as JOHARI window, MIRROR approach and Biographic model. Firstly, in this literature review, I would like to analyse my identity during conducting the research that assist me to analyse my strength as well as areas of improvement throughout the research process. In terms of conducting this research I visualise myself as a Shaper. As mentioned by Burnham (2018), a shaper always focusses on shaping own professional as well as personal skills and knowledge in terms of enhancing the efficiency of individual in using these skills. Being a shaper, I always try to find out my flaws in my professional activities which assist me to enhance the level accuracy as well as proficiency in each skill.

During thus literature review I would like to use one ide the most relevant as well as preferable approaches Through the MIRROR Writing approach which assisted me to use the experiences and strategies that I have already used in the past to improve the current professional and personal skills. As mentioned by Armstrong (2018) the MIRROR approach is one of the most preferable approaches in the research which assist researcher to make critical analysis of past experiences, values and behaviour of an individual in terms of fun ding out the weakness and strength. This approach assisted me to develop my analysing and judgemental skills that are the two important skills requires into management field. In addition to this, though analysing past experiences I had improved my interactive ability, writing skills and time management skills, that will assist me to deal with official issues in management field in the near future. On the contrary Bentley-Williams et al. (2017) argued that, sometimes analysing past experience makes researchers more confused with what they gained through past experience adv hi they can implement these gained skills in their professional fields. In this context, Through the MIRROR Writing approach assisted me to develop my professional skills a such as time management skill, interactive skill, judgmental skill, communication skill, analysing skill and decision-making skill, which are important for a management personnel to deliver high quality service. As mentioned by Graham (2018) though using the Through the Mirror Writing Approach a researcher can analyse the decision-making skill, writing skills, past values, opinion and beliefs that assist the researcher to modernise the professional skills. Being a Shape the Though the MIRROR Writing approach would be most relevant approaches in analysing past values and activities that allow me to shape my personality, behaviour, decision and views. On addition to this though using the MIRROR approach I can understand that what actual changes I need to make in the skill and behaviour to make betterment of me professional ability and power.

During the module, I have used another important approach in term of analysing my professional skill and management learning process is, Critical Reflexive approach. As stated, by Leigh (2016), the Critical Reflexive approach assists researcher to analyse as well as evaluate the overall decisions, assumption and opinion of the individual. This approach allows me to reflect my thoughts, assumptions, activities and values that I have used in past activities. The critical reflection on these assumption and values assisted me to determine the errors as well as flaws associated with my past activities and values that I need to correct and shape to be a perfectionist in the professional field. As mentioned by Mackay and Tymon (2016), in the management learning, student can use the critical reflective process in term of reflecting on own feeling, emotion and experienced that they gathered during the module. The critical Reflexive approach allowed me to analyse the pas assumptions, decision and believe that I have carried during the module and assisted me to modernise these assumptions as well as thoughts with using innovative as well as creative decision. Being a creative and innovative decision maker, I can easily achieve my future goal to be a good management professional with having sting professional knowledge and modern skills.

In this context I can use Gibbs Reflective model in term of making critical reflection on my feeling, experiences and values. As mentioned by Graham (2018), while making critical reflection own skills and ability that individual needs to use the Cycle of Reflexion in terms of determining as well as analysing the experience and activities of the individual. In the Description stage, I can analyse the events in which I have gone through during the module. When I was introduced to a new management team, I was quite introvert and shy, that restricted me to make clear interaction with my team members as well as team leaders. During the first month of the module, I faced severe difficulties in communicating the with team members I had poor English pronunciation, that made me feeling shy to interact with team members or ask question in the class. As mentioned by Leigh (2016), in critical reflection description of past events cannot be sufficient in terms of shaping skill and knowledge of individual, rather individual need to also critically reflect on feelings, emotion and experience through which the individual has passed. In the next stage, the Feeling, I can analyse my feeling and thoughts which assists me to determine the flaws in my past assumption, and inferences. During the module I felt that I need to work on my communication as well as interactive skill which will make me able to communicate with t team leaders and team members in better manner. I also felt that, I need to read different looks and journal on management study in terms of shaping my professional as well as academic knowledge on the topic that make me enough strong to understand the lectures and discuss queries with the lecturers. In this context mclaren (2017) mentioned that, in critical evaluation sometimes reflection on last feeling can make the individual depressed and anxious while they get back to their failures, rather the critical reflection needs to do on positive experience and events that can motivate individuals to make their proper professional development. In the experience stage, I can analyse my good and bad experience during the overall management module. The bad experience was the poor support from my team leaders and team members who most of the times do not allow me to express my opinion a decision regarding setting plan and objectives of the project that was given to out team. The positive experience was the improvement that I have developed during the module on my writing skills, time management skills, interactive and communication skill that assisted me to gather enough self-confidences in getting better job in the management filed. According to Mackay and Tymon (2016), by evaluating and refection non good bad experience individual, can find out weakness and strength which assist them to develop their professional standard. In the Analysis stage, I can say that the overall decisions, values and beliefs that I had used during the module sometimes was not relevant with the situation, therefore ned to work on my analytical skills and judgement skill to make proper understanding and interpretation of project that would be given to my team. In the Conclusion stage I can say, during the module I can transform my bad experiences in the good one by eliminating the negative behaviour such as shyness, introvert, less-confident and poor analysing ability. In the action plan, I would like include some activities such as work on writing skills, regular interaction with team members and team leaders, through reading on different management topic and work on my judgemental and analytical skill. All these action plan will improve as well as shape my overall professional skills that are important to get a good career in management field.

Methodology:

While conducting this research, I had executed the Critical qualitative Inquiry, which assisted me to make a critical investigation and evaluation on my past experiences, values, background and thoughts. As mentioned by mclaren (2017), Critical qualitative Inquiry assist researchers to analyse whether the past experiences, assumptions and feelings were relevant to the present context or the researchers need to make modernisation in past knowledge and skill to grab high level of professional development. In conducting the Critical qualitative Inquiry, I have used autoethnography, that allowed me to investigate the autobiography and connect it to my personal feelings as well as experiences by using cultural dimension. By using autoethnography in the research process I was able to make critical analysis of my personal feelings, thoughts, perception and ideologies through using the biographical as well as cultural context. As mentioned by Mackay and Tymon (2016), through using the autoethnography, the researcher can identify how the socio-cultural as well as biographic context are associated with the personal and professional qualities of the researchers. There are many approaches associated with the autoethnography such as narrative ethnography, reflexive ethnography and personal ethnography. While conducting the research I had used the reflexive ethnography that assisted me to reflect not only assisted me to reflect on my personal experience but also assisted me to determine the errors as well as flaws that are associated with these past experiences. In addition to this, in this research I had also used the Art-Based Research Methodology, which allowed me to understand the proper art learning as well as writing skill which will assist me to manage the documentation of different files as well as conduct presentation on any project easily. In this context Meltzer (2020.) Mentioned that the Art-Based Research Methodology is one of the most important research methodologies which assists researcher to understand the tactics of learning and written in terms of developing the skill in better manner so that the researcher will be helped through these skills in the professional field. In addition to this, the Art-Based Research Methodology also assisted me to use socio-cultural context while determining as well as analysing the personal and professional skill of researcher to make proper personal as well as professional development. Although I had used Reflexive ethnography in every stage of this research methodology, I has also used the mixture of concept of both ethnographic approaches which assisted me to develop my decision-making skill, analysing skill, assumption skill and judgemental skill. Though using three ethnographic skills I had gathered professional knowledge of management topic which will assist me to grab goo position in the preferable designation in management company. While conducting this research I have also use Epistemological approach though which I can visualise myself as an object of inquiry. Through this process I was able to inquire that whether the experiences that I had gathered throughout the module was helpful in developing my professional and personal skill. Additionally, the Epistemological approach also allowed me to make as judgemental viewpoint on past activities as well as behaviour in terms of analysing that what are the areas on which I need to focus for improving my skills that will make me perfect in my profession career.

Using autoethnography methodology in this research, I was able to use ontological assumption that assisted me to learn how to use realistic approaches and strategies in the professional and personal filed to grab opportunity and achieve the goals. As stated by mclaren (2017), ontological study described the nature of reality in research, which allows the researcher to determine et realistic nature of the methodologies as well as approaches that are used in the research. In addition, the oenological assumption develops my ability to use such practical strategies and plans that have strong relevance with realistic situation and event. Through using ontological approach in the research gather strong knowledge on how the realistic objectives need to be set by both individual which enhance the chances of achieving common goals in the organisation. During using the Critical Reflexive Inquiry, I was allowed to use another important reflective approach, the Emotional recall. Through implementing the concept of Emotion recall in the study, I was able to recall the past experiences, feelings, emotions and events , which allow me to determine the strength and weakness that are associated with these feeling and emotion.. For example, during conducting research methodology I was had learned the skill to control emotional and feeling with working in a group. In addition to this, the emotional recall process also assisted me to understand how to use proper analytical and decision-making skill in terms of taking strict decision during hard times rather than getting emotional and nostalgic. As argued by (), sometimes it is difficult for the researchers to recall the past emotions as well as feelings as they can gone through several experiences, therefore it would be difficult for them to select that what type of experiences and feeling they would analyse through the Emotional Recall process in terms of improving professional as well as personal skill. In this methodology while using reflexive autoethnography, I was able to use Systematic Sociological Introspection which assisted me to make critical analysis on past feeling and thoughts. As stated by (), Systematic Sociological Introspection can be defined as the process of analysing the feelings on past emotions and thoughts on past thinking process. By implementing approaches of Systematic Sociological Introspection, I am able to determine what was the wrong with this feeling and emotion that led to bad memories. Throughout the process of Systematic Sociological Introspection, I has found out several issues such as lack of my communication skill, interactive skill and decision-making skill in past activities that led to development of negative experience such as unsupportiveness of team members and bullying during the module. Additionally, another important reflective approach that I have used in the research methodology is therapeutic inquiry. According to Mackay and Tymon (2016), therapeutic inquiry is the process of investing as well as inspecting the changes that a researcher can gained over the years through shaping professional and personal skills. While conducting this research, I had used the therapeutic enquiry that assisted me to get back to the changes that I have gained my skills and knowledge throughout the module. I addition to this, the therapeutic inquiry also assisted me to analyse the strategies and plans that I had applied in shaping my professional and personal skill. For example, I had gone through regular writing on different management topic that made amazing transformation of my writing skill. Another example of potential changes in my skills and abilities is, through regular interaction with my team mates and discussing my queries with my lecturers I was able to develop my interactive skill and fluency in English communication which makes me allowed me to represent my viewpoint on any topic or establish string argument regarding any project plan.

The research methodology although was quite knowledgeable as well as useful that allowed me to develop my profession and personal skill, I have faced some limitation in completing this methodology successfully. The first limitation that I had faced during conducting research methodology is lack of readiness for this research. When I was assigned the research project, I had little knowledge on autoethnography, Critical Reflexive inquiry and Emotional Recall, therefore lots times was invested in gathering proper information and develop understanding about this concept before writing t research project. In addition to this I have faced fund and time limitation in conducting the research process, I could not download most of the relevant articles as they were paid articles and cannot be accessed freely. On the other hand. As most of the times was invested into gathering knowledge about the approaches as well as terminologies are used in this research, I was unable to mage times to get in-depth analysis on resources for providing the evidence-based information in the research.

Method:

During conducting this research method, I had used two important methods such as JOHARI window of refection and the Gardner Cycle. By using Gardner Cycle of reflection, I was able to connect my feeling and emotion with the past experiences and activities. In addition to this, the Gardner Cycle assisted me to develop my understanding on how the socio-cultural and historical context are associated with changing emotion, assumption and behaviour of people. As mentioned by Mackay and Tymon (2016), Gardner Cycle is one of the most important reflective methods which can be used by researcher to reflect on self-development and personal as well as professional skill enhancement of researchers. By using Gardner Cycle, I can reflect on my feelings, emotion, thoughts and perception by analysing four different stages through which I have gone during the module. In the first stage, the experience, I can analyse the bad and good experience that I had gone through and what I learned from each experience. In the module the bad experiences were my poor interaction with team members and team leaders, lack of proper time management skills which make me unable to meet the deadline of each task and poor analysing skill that makes me failure in analysing underlying criteria of each task. These bad experiences instigate me to work more on these skills which result in positive transformation of my abilities and skills that assisted me to grab good job opportunities in the management careers. As mentioned by Thomsen (2017), by analysing the past experiences the researchers can analyse their feelings emotion and decisions, that assist them to shape the skills in such a manner that makes them perfectionist. The second stage is reaction, in which I can reflect on my feelings, emotion and activities that are the reaction of the action that I had done in the module. For example, due to the poor communication and lack of interactive ability I was unable to communicate properly with the lecturers and team mates. As a result, I felt that I need to work on these skills which would make me able to be highly interactive and extrovert in the group. In the third stage, the meaning, I was able to relate my current feeling, activities, skills and perception with past experiences. This process assisted to me determining the changes as well as improvement that I have done on my professional and personal skill. The last stage, context assisted me to analyse the impact of socio-cultural and historical context on my personal and profession skill such as decision-making skills, problem-solving ability, interactive skill, time-management skill and communication skill.

Like Gardner Cycle, another important reflective model that I would like it use in the research method is the JOHARI Window. As mentioned by Zulfikar (2019), the JOHARI Window, is one of the important models in critical reflective research, in which the researcher can be able to focus on self-awareness, professional and personal development, interpersonal communication and group dynamics. Through using the model, I was able to analyse my relationship with my teammates as well as with my lecturers. In addition to this, the JOHARI window assisted me to understand myself in better manner by analysing my known skills. On the other hand, through using the model, I am able to know my team mates and lecturers well with analysing skill and abilities. As mentioned by Thomsen (2017), through using this model, the researcher cannot only develop knowledge on own strength and weakness but also the researcher can know other members in the research team very well. Therefore, I can say that using the JOHARI window model assisted me to develop strong relationship with my team mates as well as with team leaders that make me able to share my values, opinion and decision with them for promoting my professional and personal development.

Self-refection:

While reflecting on my past experiences and knowledge that I gather throughout the research process, I would like to use the Gibbs reflective cycle. Through using this reflective model, I can discuss as well as evaluate my past experiences as well as my knowledge that I has gained while conducting research. In description phase, I can describe my roles as a researcher that I played in accomplishing this research successfully. As a researcher I was assigned to data collection and data analysis process. As my team was working on a secondary research project, I used to collect secondary database from articles, journals and magazines. The data collection and data analysis process have assisted me to learn about the importance of secondary data collection methods as well as importance of secondary data in meeting research objectives. In the next phase feeling, I can evaluate my feelings regrading the research process. I felt that I needed to work on my communication and interaction skill while conducting literature review, because it would help me to share my issues with team members as well as with team leaders to solve them accordingly. Throughout literature review and the entire research process, I felt that sometimes my opinion and viewpoint are not appreciated by team members and team leaders as there was lack of practicability and relevancy in my opinion. I also felt that I need to work on my written skill, a I had faced sever issues in quick writing of literature review and data collection process. In evaluation phase, I can evaluate the good as well as adverse aspects associated with my experience throughout the research process. The good experience is teamwork in the research process that assisted me to develop adaptability skill and conflict resolution skill. The adverse aspects associated with my experiences is opinion mismatch and disagreement that I had faced during the data collection process. In analysis phase, I can analyse that the overall research process was highly productive and helpful to me in developing my professional and personal skill. Additionally, it assisted me to make proper knowledge of on literature review, data analysis and researcher objectives. In conclusion and action plan phase, I can say I need to work more on my verbal and written communication skill which will assist me to make positive and effective interaction with my team members and lecturers.

Bibliography:

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Meltzer, C., 2020. The reflexive practitioner; using arts-based methods and research for professional development. In Arts-Based Research, Resilience and Well-being Across the Lifespan (pp. 209-231). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

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