Description

Institutional learning: Transcending two distinct approaches by integrating core values into inquiry

CYNTHIA ANNE HALE PHD

Academic Director of Institutional Learning, Core Professor, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America

Abstract

Institutions of higher education are under increasing pressures to validate the very process of learning. These forces often emphasize education as a product meant to produce a specific end result for consumers, rather than as a transformative process in which a person engages with an unknown outcome. The tension between the values and dangers of these divergent approaches to learning presents a particular challenge for the institutional research approaches at a specialized graduate institute oriented in the principles of depth psychology. In this article I explore how inquiry that is framed as institutional learning synthesizes two distinct approaches of education by incorporating principles of depth psychology with accreditation-defined best practices of assessment and institutional research. I explain how six core values of the institute guide our processes and present a model called the regenerative cycle of inquiry with a mixed methods example of its implementation. Additionally, I discuss how our revisions to a course evaluation survey incorporate the core values of the institution. I conclude that an ongoing and vibrant dialog between polarized perspectives can result in mixed and multiple approaches that transcend the limitations of a singularly exclusive practice.

Keywords: depth psychological inquiry, institutional learning, regenerative process of inquiry, core values, higher education, evaluation/assessment, mixed methods