Table of Contents
In this section, we provide an overview of the dialogue methods, describing how we classify them. It is useful to reiterate that our aim is to present group conversation processes to jointly create meaning and shared understanding about real-world problems by bringing together knowledge from relevant disciplines and stakeholders.
The challenging issue for identifying relevant dialogue methods and classifying them relates to just what is being integrated. From an initial understanding of what (structured) dialogue might integrate, we developed a list of elements we believed were possibly being integrated—these included facts, judgments, visions, values, interests, epistemologies, time scales, geographical scales and world views. These provided the basis for further interrogating the literature on dialogue and hunting out case studies. In terms of the elements we identified, we found dialogue methods specifically geared to integrating judgments, visions, world views, interests and values.
In this way, we determined that there were two broad classes of dialogue methods for research integration: those that were useful for gaining a broad understanding of a problem and those that were useful for honing in on a particular aspect of a problem.
We put methods for integrating judgments together to make up the class of methods for gaining a broad understanding. In forming a judgment, a person takes into account the facts as they understand them, their personal goals and moral values, and their sense of what is best for others as well as themselves (Yankelovich 1999). Most of the dialogue methods we identified fell into this group and they are citizens’ jury, consensus conference, consensus development panel, Delphi technique, future search conference, most significant change technique, nominal group technique, open space technology, scenario planning and soft systems methodology.
The second class of methods focuses on a particular aspect of understanding a problem. We identified methods specifically geared to four aspects: integrating visions (appreciative inquiry), world views (strategic assumption surfacing and testing), interests (principled negotiation) and values (ethical matrix).
Before moving on to describe these groups of methods, it might be useful to outline how we think they could be used for research integration, or more particularly how we think they should not be used. We do not believe that research integration needs to slavishly identify every element of knowledge and then institute a process for bringing together all the disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives on each element. Instead, for most problems, a method for developing broad, shared understanding, as indentified in our first class of methods, will be more than adequate. For some problems, however, it can be particularly important to tease out one aspect. For example, in the peri-urban land-use illustration, understanding different values about progress and growth, conserving the environment and providing equity for all citizens (in terms of access to housing, in this case) will be integral to developing shared understanding, so that a dialogue method targeted at values can be particularly helpful.
Similarly, for other problems, differences in visions can be particularly pertinent. Vision here relates to aspirations about dealing with the problem. For example, if the problem under investigation is the different life expectancy between rich and poor members of a community, different ultimate aspirations can affect the ability to bring different perspectives together. Those whose vision is to use the community as a case study to develop national policy tackling multiple facets of poverty will approach the problem differently from those whose aspiration is to improve employment opportunities for the disadvantaged in that one area. When the problem is such that the disciplinary and stakeholder experts are likely to have widely different visions, methods focusing on understanding these could be necessary.
The same logic applies to world views or mental models, which are the assumptions that each of us hold about how the world works in relation to the problem under consideration. That logic also applies to interests, which are our motivations for getting involved in understanding the problem.
We therefore classified the methods we identified as useful for research integration as follows.
citizens’ jury
consensus conference
consensus development panel
Delphi technique
future search conference
most significant change technique
nominal group technique
open space technology
scenario planning
soft systems methodology.
appreciative inquiry: integrating visions
strategic assumption surfacing and testing: integrating world views
principled negotiation: integrating interests
ethical matrix: integrating values.
As with all classifications, the boundaries between different groups are not hard and fast. This is compounded further by the flexibility with which particular methods can be applied. Nevertheless, we suggest that the classification we present here provides a workable beginning that can be used as the basis for further development of dialogue methods for research integration.
Before moving on to issues concerning the application of these methods, it is also important to point out that, by and large, the dialogue methods we investigated were devised for some purpose other than research integration. For many, it is an easy, logical move to increase their applications to include research integration. For some, however, expanding their use to research integration requires a different way of thinking about the method. For example, the nominal group technique falls into the former category. This is a highly structured method to assist participants in pooling their judgments about an issue, involving the generation, recording and discussion of, and voting on, ideas. As we illustrate in the relevant section of this book, there are clear examples of how this is useful in research integration. On the other hand, using principled negotiation for research integration requires thinking about this method in a novel way. Principled negotiation was originally devised as a conflict-resolution method but its techniques—for identifying interests, generating options for meeting the range of interests ascertained and developing fair ways to resolve differences in interests—can also be applied in situations where there is no conflict, but where people seek to understand and accommodate each other’s motivations. Interestingly, while one of us (Gabriele Bammer) has used principled negotiation in this way in large collaborative projects, we have been unable to find any documented examples of its use as a research integration tool. To assist the reader to understand how readily each method can be transposed to research integration, we provide a genealogy of the method and a commentary on its use in research integration in the description of each method.
While this is the first published compilation and analysis of dialogue methods for research integration, other sources cover some of the methods dealt with here and additional methods that we have excluded from this book, having judged that they are either not dialogue methods or are not useful for research integration. They apply quite different classificatory schemes. Examples include the following, and a fuller list is in Appendix 2:
Start and Hovland (2004), Tools for Policy Impact: A handbook for researchers. Some 31 tools are covered in this source, classified into research tools for policy impact, context assessment, communication and policy influence.
Carson and Gelber (2001), Ideas for Community Consultation: A discussion on principles and procedures for making consultation work. This source includes four of the methods we have covered, but its focus is community consultation.
Keating (2002), Facilitation Toolkit: A practical guide for working more effectively with people and groups. This includes 20 tools. While the facilitation of dialogue is an important component of many of the methods we describe, our focus is not on facilitation as such, as is the case in Keating’s publication.
Urban Research Program, Griffith University (2006), URP Toolbox. This ‘toolbox’ contains 63 tools that can be used to improve the quality of stakeholder involvement in decision making, particularly regarding environmental sustainability. Again, it covers some of the dialogue methods discussed in this book.
Appendix Table 3.1 provides an extensive list of methods—some drawn from these publications—that we have used as a starting point for identifying dialogue methods for research integration.