other words, according to the analysis I made from my reaction when working with the
participants, I have to admit that the aspects that influenced in my developing good or
bad records of students were comembership and institutional identity. Let me now
analyse the case of the two learners that developed bad records.
The case of F, as I see it, is related to the degree of agreement he had about the
project procedures, which in this case represented the institutional procedures. On
several occasions he gave evidence of his lack of commitment with the project. My
reaction to this attitude was reflected in my field notes:
C: Is F developing a bad record...?
What is going on with F? I think that he doesn’t want to work in a methodical
way. He either arrives late or doesn’t arrive. Or, what is worse, he
is here in the SAC but forgets that he has an appointment with me. He is
intelligent but right now he is not interested in learning something specific.
In order to carry out one of the tasks of the project, he asked me to help him
to find some materials. I gave him two books to work with the things he said
he was interested on. He just lost one (and he cannot find it because he
doesn’t remember which one it was) and said that he didn’t like the other
because it represented too much work. I also feel that I am not very willing to
give much time to him... Why is he in the project? His motivation is only
instrumental. He wants this to be part of his social service for the BA and
he also is asking for a letter from me saying that he took part of the project.
F himself was very aware of his lack of motivation. Apparently, this was due to
his own way of learning and working:
F: This project helped me to confirm that I don’t like to work under pressure,
either this pressure means coming to the SAC in specific hours, doing homework
or writing diaries. I don’t like to be methodical.
It is a pity that the organisational features of the project called for this
“methodical” element that required the participants to do several things: to attend to
input sessions, group discussions and individual meetings, to work in the SAC and to
share the evidence (what they call homework) to the counsellor, and to reflect on their
experiences by means of a diary. Without such systematic conditions, I believe that F
would have been happier. However, without such “systematic conditions” I believe that
the project would have been very difficult to carry out. I strongly believe that if you
agree to participate to work with other people you need to respect the “institutional”
rules that the shared experience implies. I believe that a high degree of institutional
identity is needed in order for a leamer∕counsellor interaction to take place. In a way, this
is very much related to collaboration, an aspect that I will reflect on in the next chapter9.
The case of S was different. He basically accepted his “obligations” as a
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