Critical Reflection Portfolio

Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

When I started developing my inquiry plan, I felt like I would stand in front of a huge mountain. Neither I could see the mountaintop or had any knowledge needed to reach it.

I began the process by reading Reader 4 and did realize, that the inquiry process will take me a lot of patience and reflection. I started thinking about an issue where me and other professionals could benefit from. After days of reflection, reading different articles, speaking with people and analysing the goals which I would like to reach in my further career, I came up with a few questions (Appendix A). I got much positive feedback and decided to stay on the chosen path.

For driving the inquiry process forward, me and Patrick Abels built a design group on facebook and additional to this I built a SIG on linkedin that deals particularly with my issue (Appendix B). I also joined other SIGs. But the results of my groups lagged behind my expectations, because design professionals are the minority in this course and the participation has been weak.

I tried to compensate this lack by discussing verbally my issue with other professionals and friends of mine. This discussions and the exchange of thoughts have been very useful for narrowing down my topic and made me aware of the weak points.

The theme ethics has been confusing for me first of all, because I didn't know how to link ethics to research or my professional practice. I thought ethics related to practice does mean professional and acceptable behaviour in my workplace (Appendix C). But after reading Reader 5 and the Code of Conduct of my workplace (Appendix D), I realized that ethics in practice are far more than only accurate and respectfull behaviour. They are fundamental values of social life.

I recogniced some overlaps concerning ethical guidelines, but a few points vary and depend on different circumstances e.g. research has different requirements on ethics (Appendix E) than the profession graphic design (Appendix F). Now, I am aware how important ethics in all these cases are and that I, as an Insider Researcher, have to adhere to all of them.

After I narrowed down my inquiry theme (Appendix G), I designed my pilot survey, my pilot interview and my pilot focus group (Appendix H). I didn't expect the difficulties which emerged by testing this tools. But I do know now that a good preperation and previously testing reduces errors, which is particularly important for ensuring a high number of participants and collecting data that are useful for an academic inquiry.

During the process I found a lot of great literature concerning my topic (Appendix I). Complementation to this 'delicious' have been a great help and enabled me to collect and organize important internet sources (Appendix J).

Summing up, I feel that this module has prepared me very well for conducting a professional and effective professional inquiry which will be useful for my own professional development, as well as benefiting other professionals.