Creating a space for reflection on professional priorities

Researchers who investigate value-laden professional practices face the challenge of creating a space in which to explore workplace priorities. Education professionals, for example, are keyed to the development and wellbeing of their students, yet frequently work in environments in which there are constraints on their practice. These professionals often have to find a balance among priorities, a process accompanied by reflection and professional conversations. For researchers seeking insight into the work of these professionals, accessing these reflections is not necessarily straightforward. This paper presents a method whereby sorting and think-aloud techniques were combined to create a space in which professionals could share reflections on professional priorities. Employing a magnetic board representing normative dimensions of high importance/low importance, and should/should not, participants were able to decide where to place magnetic labels capturing different aspects of their work. While interacting with the sorting task, participants verbalized their deliberations which were recorded, along with their label placements. Meaningful qualitative data were elicited through this process. We experienced that this combination of techniques offered an effective way of eliciting reflections and deliberations that throw light on aspects of professional work which may be less readily accessed through a traditional interview technique.