In June 2017, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service Student Emily Loker used a string of five Liberating Structures (LS) to conduct six “listening sessions” with groups of Philippi high school students in Cape Town, South Africa. Her purpose was to more deeply understand how they viewed “success.”
Loker’s Clinton School professor and William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow Arvind Singhal believes that this might have been “the first time that a LS string was systematically employed to collect research data in a sequential manner.”
The data collection process consisted of the following LS string: TRIZ inspired a light-hearted atmosphere as participants discussed how to ensure they were “unsuccessful,” and, hence, what they needed to stop doing. Appreciative Interviews began generating definition of success using 1-2-4-All to distill responses.
Discovery and Action Dialogues uncovered what created the conditions for success and allowed learners to contextualize it in their own lives. Drawing Together provided the opportunity for students to conceptualize and express success in a non-verbal way. Fifteen Percent Solutions revealed what each person in the room had the power to do now to achieve success in their own lives.
“By designing this string, Loker used each LS to unpack an onion of insights, one layer at a time,” Singhal noted.
Liberating Structures are a series of engaging and inviting processes that change the nature and quality of the interactions among a group of people (www.liberatingstructures.com). In contrast to one-on-one survey interviews, LS creates the conditions for the group to collectively engage with a salient issue, while honoring the individual voices of all participants. For research, this means they contrast the extractive nature of traditional survey methods and instead allow for the exchange of ideas amongst participants, flattening hierarchies through multiple modalities of interaction.
Loker undertook this study on behalf of the South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP) to help students to vocalize their own visions of success and inform future programming. Almost 90 youth from three schools in Cape Town came together to share and discuss what “success” meant in their own lives.
How did Loker hit upon the idea of employing liberating structures? Her professors at the Clinton School of Public Service – Christina Standerfer, Warigia Bowman, Hilary Trudell, and Singhal – utilized LS in various ways to engage with the course material.
Intrigued by what LS made possible, and with encouragement from Arvind Singhal, Loker and two other Clinton School students, Xochitl Delgado-Solorzano and Thaddeus Smith, traveled to
Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., for a three-day Liberating Structures workshop.
The most common benefit expressed by the students was working in groups and learning from one another. After participating in the listening session, one student remarked, “I really enjoyed hearing from my classmates. We don’t get that opportunity every day. I’m inspired.”
From a research perspective, Loker is convinced of the value of employing LS strings as a research method – i.e., as a way of collecting data with a group of participants.
“The true potential of LS as a method of research is yet to be realized. LS allow for data to be gathered from a group of people in a dynamic, generative, and sequential manner,” Singhal emphasized. And, by “engaging and involving everyone at once,” he added.
“While I was at the workshop, I got a chance to talk with LS Gurus Keith McCandless and Fisher Qua,” Loker said. “Fisher started brainstorming with me about my research in South Africa and everything fell into place.”
When Loker arrived in South Africa, she wondered if her supervisors would be open to her using Liberating Structures instead of the agreed-upon focus groups. She even brought along her copy of The Surprising Power Liberating Structures by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless to vouch for the validity of the alternative method. Fortuitously, her supervisors were intrigued by LS and gave her the green light. They grasped that LS would make it possible to engage all participants at once, enriching and building on the collective research insights.
The most common benefit expressed by the students was working in groups and learning from one another. After participating in the listening session, one student remarked, “I really enjoyed hearing from my classmates. We don’t get that opportunity every day. I’m inspired.”
From a research perspective, Loker is convinced of the value of employing LS strings as a research method – i.e., as a way of collecting data with a group of participants.
“The true potential of LS as a method of research is yet to be realized. LS allow for data to be gathered from a group of people in a dynamic, generative, and sequential manner,” Singhal Singhal emphasized. “And, by engaging and involving everyone at once,” he added.