In and Out of the Black Box: Human Learning, Contextual Performance and Qualitative Research: Yvonna S. Lincoln
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2012 Taylor & Francis. The suggestion is proffered that we do not know how to access what is in the human mind (the black box?) unless we engage the other, asking what she or he is thinking. It is only then that researchers in human resource development can begin to understand the deepest human needs, wishes and desires that affect human performance in the workplace. Five related issues are taken up: the major issues confronting the field of human resource development; the problem with measuring? learning, especially in the workplace; performance as a desired outcome vs. performances of the postmodern, saturated self, which has many choices about identities, roles, enactments, self-presentations; the relationship of human resource development to higher education, which is a supersaturated project in human resource development itself, and; what qualitative methods can help us to unlock and understand about human beings and being human. (11th AHRD Conference, Austin, Texas, USA 2004) CONTEXT (WRITTEN BY MONICA LEE) As Yvonna pointed out in her keynote, she was invited in from the outside (around where I live, the farming community term it from off?!). She cannot write about either the context or the aftermath of her keynote as she is not part of the field of HRD. I am, however, very keen to include her keynote in this book for several reasons that I will discuss at the end of this chapter. For the moment, I will just point out that this keynote was given in 2004 in an AHRD1 conference, at a time when the field of HRD and the US-based academic HRD networks in particular were heavily aligned with positivistic approaches to enquiry and standardization of the reporting of results. This was so, to the extent that some US journals would not accept alternative formats in their publications. At this time a brave few were looking at qualitative methodologies-but they were a small minority.
