Disorienting Dilemmas: Their Effects on Learners, Impact on Performance, and Implications for Adult Educators

Disorienting dilemmas induced by adult educators have varied and often adverse effects on learners. Although this may lead to transformative learning, it can have both positive and negative impacts on their performance. Adult educators need to be wary in their efforts to foster and facilitate transformative learning. Learning is the relatively permanent change in human capability or disposition that is not ascribable simply to the processes of growth (Gagne & Medsker, 1996). It can be simple, or it can be transformative. Simple learning merely elaborates the learner’s existing paradigm, systems of thinking, feeling, or doing, relative to a topic (Robertson, 1996). Transformative learning involves “critical self-reflection, which results in the reformulation of a meaning perspective to allow a more inclusive, discriminating, and integrative understanding of one’s experience” (Mezirow, 1990, p. xvi). It begins with a disorienting dilemma which leads to critical reflection and then to a perspective transformation which the individual acts upon. Disorienting dilemmas affect adult learners in many different ways and impact the performance of the individual. Since the effects on learners are often adverse, many adults are reluctant to further their education due to the challenges and stress involved. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of disorienting dilemmas induced by adult educators on their learners, the impact on their performance, and the implications for adult educators in order to better understand why some adults are reluctant to further their education. The review of the literature was guided primarily by the following questions: 1. What effects do disorienting dilemmas have on adult learners? 2. How do these effects impact the performance of adult learners? First, I present the phases in transformative learning which will be used as the framework for the rest of this paper. Second, I discuss how disorienting dilemmas induced by adult educators affect their learners. Third, I analyze the impact on the performance of learners. Fourth, I explore the implications for adult educators in terms of practical and ethical issues, and the risks involved in fostering and facilitating transformative learning. The Phases of Transformative Learning Transformative learning which was introduced by Jack Mezirow in 1978 has evolved into “a comprehensive and complex description of how learners construe, validate, and reformulate the meaning of their experience” (Cranton, 1994, p. 22). According to Mezirow (2000), it often follows some variation of the following phases: 1. A disorienting dilemma 2. Self-examination with feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or shame 3. A critical assessment of assumptions 4. Recognition that one’s discontent and the process of transformation are shared 5. Exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions 6. Planning a course of action 7. Acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans 8. Provisional trying of new roles 9. Building competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships 10. A reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspective (p. 22). Although the phases outline the process of personal transformation, they do not always occur in the exact sequence presented above. Learners can also experience more than one phase of the process simultaneously. Disorienting Dilemmas and Their Effects on Learners Disorienting dilemmas can be acute internal or external personal crises (Mezirow 1978) or integrating circumstances which are indefinite periods in which individuals search for something that is missing from their lives (Clark, 1991, 1993 as ctd. in Taylor, 1998). Adult educators induce disorienting dilemmas by exposing the limitations of the learners’ current knowledge or approach, using metaphors, questioning learners’ assumptions, and providing feedback. This can have many different effects on learners depending on their personality, experience, age, status in the program, personal issues that they are coping with at the time, the nature of the disorienting dilemma, who the adult educator is, and the methods used to foster or facilitate transformative learning. To illustrate some of these effects, I will use the example of an instructor providing feedback to adult learners. There are some things in life we hold as sacred, and when our beliefs, our values, and or our assumptions are questioned, we tend to become angry, argumentative and/or defensive. It does not matter how much the learners may admire and trust that instructor, they may begin to resent the instructor and feel angry with him (Robertson, 1996), especially if they are shocked by the feedback that they receive. Many get confused and do not know what to do, or how to handle the feedback provided. Some examine themselves and feel humiliated, especially when the feedback is provided in a condescending manner. Others feel ashamed of what they may have presented, said, or done. Learners get frustrated at times and this sometimes leads to feelings of guilt and may even trigger depression. This affects all areas of an individual’s life including their performance on the job. “Depression...is predicted to be the leading occupational disease of the 21 century, responsible for more days lost than any other single factor” (Stress Directions, 2005, p. 1). Disorienting dilemmas evoke every conceivable emotion in learners. Our emotions and our feelings provide both the impetus for us to critically reflect, and the gist of which to reflect deeply (Taylor, 2000). Many learners are socialized in sub-cultures that place little or no value on critical reflection and as a result, any major challenge to their established perspective is painful since this questions their deeply held personal values and threatens their very sense of self (Mezirow, 1990, 1991). As learners engage in critical reflection, some experience grief even as they become enlightened (Scott, 1997) and they struggle to embrace new ways of thinking and of being. This is because we are often unaware of our mental models and how they affect our behavior until we are faced with a disorienting dilemma. Mental models are “deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action” (Senge 1990, p. 8). They are often barriers to change and can impede learning. Disorienting dilemmas lead to stress and anxiety. Seyle (1974) defined stress as the nonspecific response of the body to any demand placed upon it. It can be eustress which is good and