This thesis examines the development of reflective skills. Reflection has been recognised as a prime mode of creating knowledge for project managers. Reflection literature indicates that reflective skills do not develop naturally; guidance, encouragement and facilitation is usually required for managers to reach their highest learning potential. Among the tools suggested to aid this development are written project journals. While there has been research on some aspects of journals, there was little found on the design of reflective journals relevant to developing project management reflection skills. This study has examined the effect or influence of various designs of reflective journals on different facets of reflective learning. The research question was: ????Are there facets of reflection that can be influenced by journal design????? Evidence for the study was first gathered through literature then from journal content and interviews. Literature on reflective learning revealed the facets relevant to the study: definition of reflection, consequences, emotions, temporal factors and individual and organisational culture. Issues identified in journal literature that needed to be applied to the study of reflection development included the journal audience, assessment and format. Participants in the study were final year undergraduates and Masters students who worked on industry based projects over several months. They were requested to keep journals for the duration of the projects, to submit them for examination and then asked to offer feedback on the various journal designs on completion of the projects. The research was conducted over four years, through seven projects, with thirty students taking part. The journal design went through six modifications. The primary findings from the study were: the majority of participants followed the predicted development hierarchy of reflective development; development of reflective skills is dependent on individual and organisational culture; audience does have an impact on reporting of and reflection on concerns; and journal design can facilitate development of some levels of reflection but has no influence on the development of critical reflection. / Masters by research thesis

This thesis examines the development of reflective skills. Reflection has been recognised as a prime mode of creating knowledge for project managers. Reflection literature indicates that reflective skills do not develop naturally; guidance, encouragement and facilitation is usually required for managers to reach their highest learning potential. Among the tools suggested to aid this development are written project journals. While there has been research on some aspects of journals, there was little found on the design of reflective journals relevant to developing project management reflection skills. This study has examined the effect or influence of various designs of reflective journals on different facets of reflective learning. The research question was: ????Are there facets of reflection that can be influenced by journal design????? Evidence for the study was first gathered through literature then from journal content and interviews. Literature on reflective learning revealed the facets relevant to the study: definition of reflection, consequences, emotions, temporal factors and individual and organisational culture. Issues identified in journal literature that needed to be applied to the study of reflection development included the journal audience, assessment and format. Participants in the study were final year undergraduates and Masters students who worked on industry based projects over several months. They were requested to keep journals for the duration of the projects, to submit them for examination and then asked to offer feedback on the various journal designs on completion of the projects. The research was conducted over four years, through seven projects, with thirty students taking part. The journal design went through six modifications. The primary findings from the study were: the majority of participants followed the predicted development hierarchy of reflective development; development of reflective skills is dependent on individual and organisational culture; audience does have an impact on reporting of and reflection on concerns; and journal design can facilitate development of some levels of reflection but has no influence on the development of critical reflection. / Masters by research thesis

<p>This dissertation argues for a number of theses related to responsibility, norm psychology, and personhood. Although most of the papers argue for “standalone” theses, in the sense that their truth does not depend the truth of the others, the five papers collectively illustrate a broader view of humans as (a) responsible agents who are (b) self-governing and (c) equipped with a capacity for norms, and whose agency (d) centers on dynamic responsiveness to corrective feedback. Drawing on this broader picture, the dissertation sheds light on ethical questions about our social practices and technologies, as well as descriptive questions about the nature of substance use disorder. </p> <p>Most centrally, the dissertation argues that forward-looking considerations are relevant for responsibility, not merely because the consequences of our responsibility practices are desirable, but primarily because of a connection which I argue exists between relationships, norms, and learning. On the view I defend, an agent is a responsible agent only if she can learn from being held responsible, so as to regulate herself according to norms of which she presently falls short. I argue that, if it were not for the capacity of humans to learn from <i>social corrective feedback</i>, such as normative responses like praise and blame, humans would be unable to participate in norm-governed relationships and communities. It is in virtue of their participation in these relationships and communities that humans are subject to interpersonal norms, such that they can fulfill or violate these norms and be praiseworthy or blameworthy for doing so. So, without the kind of learning that makes participation in these relationships a possibility, humans could never be praiseworthy or blameworthy for anything that they do. </p> <p>The dissertation also argues that human norm psychology has implications for how we should relate to “social robots”—artificial agents designed to participate in relationships with humans. I argue that, like humans, social robots should be equipped with a capacity to recognize and respond to normative feedback. Lastly, the dissertation resists a common narrative about addiction as being a form of akrasia in which agents act against their own better judgment. While this is certainly a central aspect of many cases of addiction, I argue that it fails to appreciate the ways in which addiction sometimes interacts with a person’s identity and goals, especially in cases where the agent believes that the things she values would not be feasible if she did not continue to engage in addictive behavior.</p>