This chapter raises the question how theory of practical knowledge can be applied to contribute to the practice and theory of validation (i.e. recognition of prior learning). The focus of the investigation is on a problem that is at the core of validation: how can assessment for validation be, at the same time, reliable and valid. In contemporary research on validation the trustworthiness of assessment is discussed in terms of validity and reliability, two ideals drawn from the social and natural sciences. Research on the recognition of prior learning suggests that the relation between reliability and validity of assessment tends to be inversely proportional. If validity increases then reliability decreases and vice versa. This leads to a problem in the practice of validation. Why? Because it puts practitioners under pressure of satisfying both ideals at the same time. Practitioners try to increase reliability by formalizing assessment procedures, though formalization tends to render invisible and exclude informal knowledge. Using an example of validation from vocational education this chapter shows how this contradiction can be overcome, or at least be eased up, by seeing the problem from the point of view of the theory of practical knowledge.

Reflection is today a watchword in manylearning contexts. Experience is said to be transformed toknowledge when we reflect on it, university students areexpected to acquire the ability to reflect critically, and wewant practitioners to be reflective practitioners in order toimprove their professional practice. If we consider whatpeople mean when they talk about reflection in practice, wewill discover that they often mean different things. Moreover,their conceptions of reflection are guided by imagesrather than by definitions. This paper explores six distinctimages of reflection and discusses the consequences ofadopting one or more of these images in learning situations:(1) dedoublement, (2) analogical thinking, (3) mirror,(4) experiment, (5) puzzle solving, (6) criss-crossing alandscape. Reflective thinking can be improved if we aresensible of what we are reflecting about and according towhich image of reflection we are doing it, since the stepbetween using an image and seeing this image as a modelis short. Using models, in turn, implies knowing theirlimits.

A case study of growers conception of irrigation strategies indicates thatpot plant growers in Scandinavia base their management approaches on experientially based art. The study also indicates that there is a gap between experientially based art and available greenhouse technology. In order to standardize production and produce quality, both the grower’s experience and available technology should be taken into account. In order to achieve this, the present study proposes to arrange reflection on reflection in action with a group of growers by means of the dialogue seminar method. The concept of reflection on reflection in action is novel to horticultural practice. Therefore, we suggest future inter- and multidisciplinary research within this domain.

This paper describes and discusses a new postgraduate course based onthe dialogue-seminar method. The course and the method have been developedwithin the research area of Skill and Technology, based at the Royal Institute ofTechnology in Stockholm. The main features of the course were dialogue andreflection on practice of research inspired by reading of the source texts from thehistory of science and philosophy written by: Descartes, Leibniz, Diderot, D’Alembert,Gadamer, Galileo and Darwin. The concept of liberal education was ofimportance in the design of the course. Doctoral students were all adults interestedin applying of research in order to improve practices at their own work places.

This study explores the application of the dialogue seminar methodwith in a doctoral programme KTH Advanced Programme in Refl ective Practiceof the research area of Skill and technology at the Royal Institute ofTechnology (KTH) in Stockholm. In order to understand distinctive features of the dialogue seminar method the study starts with a survey of how the method and its spirit were affected by the history of ideas related to the research area, of which many were generated within the intellectual milieu gathered around the Dialogue seminar of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and cultural journal Dialoger.The dialogue seminar method stands for an idea about what the link between skills, literature, philosophy, history of ideas, art and science is made up of. This idea is expressed in the way the dialogue is conducted; various topics are explored through associations, digressions and deviations form the subject. This indirect approach to reflection is called analogical thinking in contrast to the thinking based on deduction or induction. Analogical thinking prevails in judgement and action. It is also of great significance in e.g. development projects, in arts, all sorts of problem-solving, and those phases of research that call for inventiveness and imagination.The application of the dialogue seminar method within KTH Advanced Programme in Reflective Practice brings up new questions about the possibilitiesof pursuing scientific or methodological reflection by means of analogical thinking and about the status of classic humanistic readings within post graduate education.

The dialogue seminar method was developed to facilitate experience transfer in Combitech Systems, a specialised and knowledge-intensive Swedish enterprise. As a whole the dialogue seminar method, which includes reading, writing and advanced forms of dialogue, may be regarded as a framework for the process of reflection. Each part of the method is based on analogical thinking. Analogical thinking involves reflection on the similarities and differences between various objects. It is a dominant activity in judgement and action – whether the judgement or action be expressed in academic research, in industrial development projects or in traditional “practical ”occupations. Further, analogical thinking is important in all problem solving, in the arts and in those stages of research work that include inventiveness and imagination. For several years the dialogue seminar method has been applied in graduate education at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and may soon become an essential part of a range of educational programmes in the network of our partners. The dialogue seminar method has already proved to be a powerful tool in the further education of music teachers at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. We aim to explore the potential of the dialogue seminar method in giving systematic support to analogical thinking. Research on skills and technology has shown that the arts may be seen as a source of powerful, paradigmatic examples of practical knowledge. For that reason, work continues, together with the Collegium Musicum department of the Royal Collegeof Music in Stockholm

I denna avhandling presenteras en fallstudie vars studieobjekt är dialogseminariemetoden tillämpad inom forskarprogrammet KTH Advanced Programmein Reflective Practice. Dialogseminariemetoden kan ses som ett sätt att iscensätta dialog genom en systematiserad och disciplinerad procedur.Metoden utvecklades i Bo Göranzons och Maria Hammaréns samarbete med företaget Combitech Systems, mellan 1996 och 1999, i syfte att underlätta reflektion kring erfarenhetsgrundad kunskap. Sedan dess har metoden tillämpats i en rad andra situationer och i olika syften.Varför är just denna metod värd att studera? Enligt min mening löper många trådar från forskningsområdet yrkeskunnande och teknologis nu tjugoåriga metodutveckling ihop i dialogseminariemetoden. Inte minst uttrycker metoden en genomtänkt hållning i frågan om vad som förbinder litteratur, filosofi, idéhistoria och konst med yrkeskunnande och vetenskap.Denna hållning uttrycks i sättet att föra dialog; olika teman utforskas i samtalet genom associativa förbindelser, utvikningar och avvikelser. Detta kallas för analogiskt tänkande, till skillnad från tänkande som bygger på induktion eller deduktion. Att tänka analogiskt innebär att reflektera kring likheter och skillnader mellan olika företeelser. Analogiskt tänkande dominerar i omdöme och handling och är av stor betydelse i bland annat utvecklingsprojekt,inom konstnärligt arbete, all slags problemlösning, samt de faser i forskningsarbetet som kräver uppfinningsrikedom och fantasi.Dialogseminariemetoden utgör ett exempel på det som filosofen Tore Nordenstam kallar ”tillämpad humaniora”, och min beskrivning av hur metoden använts vid KTH kan ses som ett inlägg i den offentliga diskussionenom humanioras plats inom högre utbildningen.