Pia Andersson
Abstract: This study provides insights into the facilitated environment as it unfolds, and serve as an exemplar of how coactive scaffolding between participants, facilitator, methods and tools can take place while and by working on a complex issue. The paper presents a case study involving representatives from different organisations gathered for the task of developing action plans to a challenging issue of public concern. The purpose of the study was two-fold. The first was to gain insights into scaffolding dynamics between a facilitator and a diverse group of stakeholders during a series of meetings. The second purpose was to track knowledge integration through moment-to-moment interactions in the scaffolded group meetings. The Integral Process for Complex Issues, a group process designed to progressively enable an increased task complexity awareness, was used to scaffold the group meetings. For the analytical purpose of tracking the moment-to-moment interaction a micro-developmental lens was adopted. This lens provided detailed clarity into how the participants, the facilitator and the methods, coactively scaffolded the generation of new and more complex knowledge through a series of transition steps. The theoretical analysis suggests that the group members built and transformed their understanding in a non-linear fashion, resulting in a higher level of integrative complexity.
Tags: scaffolding, Pia Andersson, Coaction, group facilitation, microdevelopment, transition processes
