Exploring transformative learning : the identification and description of multiple cases among kidney transplant recipients

The purpose of this research was to identify and describe evidence of "transformative learning" as a function of the kidney transplant experience in the lives of four kidney transplant recipients. Evidence of transformative learning, defined as a change in meaning perspective manifest by the occurrence of four components - disorienting dilemma, critical reflectivity, perspective transformation, and emancipatory action - , was sought by analyzing verbatim transcripts of multiple audio-recorded interviewing sessions with each case participant about his transplant experience. Interviews were conducted in compliance with the ActionReason-Thematic Technique (ARTT) designed to ascertain the lived world of a case participant by probing a series of first person accounts and accumulating an increasingly connotatively clarified description of the case participant's experience. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed two cases of transformative learning, one case of the possible genesis of a transformative process, and one case of no transformation of any kind. It was concluded that neither transformative learning, nor transformative process(es), are necessarily precipitated by the kidney transplant experience. This conclusion raises a legitimate question regarding the purported role of disorienting dilemmas, or crises, in precipitating transformative learning.