Experienced educators are all veterans of the best and worst of student responses to difficult questions. Reflection often leads teachers and students down these volatile pathways, where seemingly uninterested students may suddenly issue interesting insights and usually engaged students turn away from the discussion or assignment for no apparent reason. Fortunately, educators have integrated developmental models with techniques for moving students along in their growth process. In an article that is transferable to most types of reflection, Professor Joan Scott distilled twenty-five years of journal analysis and lessons learned for service-learning educators.
 
Scott draws information from William Perry’s “Cognitive and Ethical Growth: The Making of Meaning” (1981) to assess the students’ journal entries and determine appropriate responses. Perry suggested that students and adults journey through nine positions with respect to moral and intellectual development. Many researchers arrange these nine positions into four broader stages: Dualism, Multiplicity, Relativism and Commitment in Relativism. Understanding these stages and the appropriate methods for moving students from one stage to the next is helpful during reflection.
 
Many high school students still function according to the Dualism stage, in which the world appears in absolutes of right and wrong. In this stage, the student looks for truth through the accumulation of correct knowledge and does not tolerate ambiguity well. Students who reflect on their service in a dualistic manner are likely to attribute an entire social problem to a single cause or reason, and they are less likely to address possibly complicated explanations. Dualistic students might, for example, suggest that helping at a soup kitchen is a nice thing to do as long as people in the shelter learn from their mistakes. Teachers could challenge students to broaden their perspective by asking provocative questions, such as, “What about people who are in homeless shelters because they fled abusive situations? Do you consider the decision to flee their abusive home a mistake? Is it possible to serve without judging or needing to know the other person’s experience?” 
 
The next stage is Multiplicity, in which the student recognizes the potential for multiple valid viewpoints, becomes more tolerant of others’ views and understands that authority figures may not have found the correct answer yet. Multiplicity could also be considered a somewhat cynical stage, as students often begin to perceive of perspectives as “the way they want us to think” and have not yet moved to a point where they are willing to consider relative merit to determine differential worth. In student-speak, it’s all good (or bad).
 
Despite Perry’s clear and clean model of development, students may experience considerable inner turmoil as they move along the continuum. They may even become alienated by the notion of multiple truths and therefore choose a quantitatively focused and precise career rather than address ambiguity. Others may reject the vexing exposure to multiple viewpoints by turning away from higher education opportunities.  Nonetheless, progress through the stages is important for developing students who want to participate in an exceptionally diverse and internationally integrated society.
 
The transition to Relativism involves a major shift in the student’s thinking. As the student begins to recognize that there are no right answers, he/she also realizes that authority has to reason through issues and questions, as well. This is often troubling, as things seem to become less certain. Often even more troubling, however, is the student’s recognition that this ambiguity applies not only to academic exercises, but also to life circumstances. As the student moves from Relativism to Commitment in Relativism, he/she begins to recognize the necessity of choosing among perspectives and making commitments based on relative, contextual merit.
 
In Commitment in Relativism, the student accepts contradictions and questions as part of life, learning to integrate learned knowledge with personal experience and reflection to make and live with a series of decisions and commitments. The student continues to consciously consider alternatives to engage in commitment as an ongoing, unfolding, evolving activity.
 
To lessen the dangers of alienation and escape during the first few stages, a careful combination of challenge and support can help students progress from one stage to another. Students may make progress within stages before making the leap from one stage to the next. Developmental psychologists refer to the “+1 principle” to describe pressing the student to consider ideas approximately one position beyond his or her own. The +1 principle is considered the optimal prescription for prodding students along their developmental pathways. Challenge is appropriate to nudge the student along in their thinking, but support should be applied as well.
 
Scott suggests a few scenarios in which students should definitely be supported: (a) the student is in transition between an ‘old’ or comfortable way of thinking and knowing to a new stage; (b) the student is aware of what he/she would like to do to change and simply needs assurance; (c) the student is experiencing feelings or reactions that he/she risks expressing, in which case assurance that it is okay to express those feelings may be appropriate; (d) the student is doing a great job and well-earned praise is in order.
 
Scott also provides a few comments that can challenge students who are still Dualistic in their thinking. For example, “How can you be so sure?” “Okay – you liked the reading. What can you critique about it?” “Would all the evidence, or all the experience, point to the same conclusion?” “Can you think of a third or fourth perspective on this question?” (Scott). Questions that examine the quality of evidence, logic and argument may press students in the Multiplicity stage to move forward. Consider this question as an example, “During the 50s, most experts supported Theory X. By the 60s, that support had eroded somewhat and today almost all experts support Theory Y. Based on the evidence that has been gained over the last several decades, indicate whether you agree with the experts’ assessment of this evidence and why.”
 
Many students may transition out of Dualism while they are in high school. Still others may transition further along the continuum. Regardless of the student’s developmental stage, it is important to support and prod along the way. As students enter new stages, they may be advancing their own well-reasoned opinions for the first time. It is essential to support their progress even while challenging them to move further. 
 
Scott, Joan (1993)  “A Journal Workshop for Coordinators” In Galura, J. and Howard, J. (eds.) Praxis II: Service-Learning Resources for University Students, Staff and Faculty. The Office of Community Service-Learning Press: Ann Arbor, MI.