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Reflective practice and the Master of Public Administration degree

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Reflective practice and the Master of Public Administration degree

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Content Running head: REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 1

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION DEGREE

by

Juliet Moeko Lee

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2018

Copyright 2018 Juliet Moeko Lee
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 2
Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank the members of my dissertation committee for their
patience, kindness and encouragement over the past few years: Dr. Paula Carbone, Dr. Jenifer
Crawford and Dr. Janet Denhardt.
To Dr. Richard Callahan, Dr. Lois Takahashi and Dr. Chester Newland, who basically
functioned as a second committee based in Sacramento – thank you for providing motivation and
reminding me to think of the bigger picture.
Thank you to the graduates of the USC MPA program who volunteered their time to
participate in this study and provide valuable insights into their lives.
And to my family and friends, thank you for being so awesome!

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 3
Table of Contents
List of Tables

5
List of Figures

6
Abstract

7
Chapter One: Overview of the Study 8
Background of the Problem
Statement of the Problem
Purpose of the Study
Significance of the Study
Limitations and Delimitations
Definition of Terms
Organization of the Study

10
14
15
16
17
19
20
Chapter Two: Literature Review 21
Definition & History of Reflective Practice
Reflective Practice Theory to Action
Reflective Practice Integration in the MPA Curriculum
Importance of Reflective Practice in MPA Studies
Reflective Practice Framework

22
24
25
30
31
Chapter Three: Methodology 34
Participant Selection
Data Collection
35
36
Survey
Interview
Artifacts
36
38
40
Data Analysis

41
Chapter Four: Findings 44
Research Methods
Findings & Themes
44
45
Analysis of Research Question 1 46
Professional Mobility
Coursework Impact
46
51
Analysis of Research Question 2 57
Reflection as a Tactic

57
Chapter Five: Discussion 66
Implications
Future Research
67
70
Limitations of Survey
Concluding Thoughts
71
72
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 4

References

74
Appendix A: Consent Form
Appendix B: Email Request to Graduates
Appendix C: Survey Instrument
Appendix D: Interview Protocol
79
81
83
89

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 5
List of Tables
Table 1: Survey Response Rate 38
Table 2: Selection of responses regarding professional mobility from the online survey 47
Table 3: Selection of responses regarding coursework impact from online survey 51
Table 4: Selection of responses to what course/themes they took away from the program 53
Table 5: Selection of responses regarding the use of reflection post-graduation 58

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 6
List of Figures
Figure A: Employment Sectors of Public Affair School Graduates 9

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 7
Abstract
This study surveyed five years of graduates from the USC Price School in Sacramento’s
Master of Public Administration degree and asked how they used reflective practice in their
professional lives. The research methods included an electronic survey sent to 82 graduates from
2012 through 2016 and follow-up interviews with five individuals, one from each graduating
cohort. The themes that emerged from the survey and interview results centered around upward
career mobility and professional development. The research found that reflection played a major
role in the graduate’s perception on their ability to change their professional careers and how
they were able to utilize the coursework outside of the classroom. The USC MPA program was
designed for students to pursue the degree while working at the same time. This was found to be
regular practice as 29 out of 30 survey respondents were working either part or full-time while
simultaneously enrolled in the degree program.
Keywords: reflective practice, Master of Public Administration degree, MPA graduates,
graduate degree application.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 8
CHAPTER ONE
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
Over the past few decades, the USC Price School of Public Policy (hereafter USC Price)
has offered a number of different degree programs at the Sacramento campus, however, the
longest running and sole remaining program offered at the time of the study was the Master of
Public Administration (MPA) degree. The stated mission of the USC Price MPA degree
program was to create the next generation of leaders and public servants who are able to create
positive change in the communities in which they serve while working to solve problems and
create solutions (University of Southern California, 2015).
The MPA degree was developed in general to prepare students for the administrative
challenges of the future (Janousek, 2017; King, Britton & Missik, 1996). Schools of public
administration endeavor to equip their graduates with the necessary skills to make a difference
and have a positive influence in their careers as public servants (Clearly, 1990; King, Britton &
Missik, 1996; Frederickson, 2001); including public service knowledge relating to public policy,
organizational management, governmental operation, and budgeting and finance (Janousek,
2017). MPA graduates enter various career fields spanning the public, private and non-profit
sectors. The graduates in the private sector tend to work on projects connected to the public or
non-profit sectors. Figure A shows at the national level, the different sectors that graduates were
employed in six months after graduation. In 2013, 35% were employed by the public sector,
which included 12% working for the state, 12% in local, 9% at the federal/central level and 2%
employed with foreign governments.
The USC Price Sacramento MPA degree program was created to enable full-time
working students to complete the MPA degree within two years. This study sought to assess the
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 9
applicability of the USC Price Sacramento MPA degree to the professional setting and evaluate
how MPA graduates were using the lessons and skills they learned in the program, specifically
reflective practice and its role in their decision-making processes. At the same time, this study
also sought to identify if there was loss of information retention, where the alumni no longer
used the lessons taught in the program. Through the lens of reflective practice, this study sought
to determine how the USC Price Sacramento MPA graduates were working through professional
challenges and situations and developing solutions, especially, whether reflective practice played
an important role.

Figure A. Employment sectors of public affair school graduates (NASPAA, 2015)

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 10
Background of the Problem
This study addresses the issue of reflective practice and its importance in decision-
making for MPA degree graduates from the USC Price Sacramento program. While not
explicitly stated, the practice of reflection is taught throughout the curricula of the MPA degree
program, as will be demonstrated in Chapter Two. Reflection is argued to be an important
component of the MPA degree as it leads to intelligent and analytical thought and action as
opposed to routine thinking, and is a necessary process for decision making and problem solving
(Callahan, 2008; Larrivee, 2000).
The MPA degree is a professional and accredited graduate degree that was developed to
educate managers on how to effectively deal with administrative challenges. The purpose was to
produce graduates with “the greatest possible competence, sensitivity to high ethical standards,
and enthusiasm for employment in the public service,” and instill the values inherent in defining
the roles, processes, methods, and philosophies of administering (King, Britton & Missik, 1996,
p. 144). The mission of the MPA degree program at USC Price is to educate professionals to
assume leadership positions for public service and to improve the state of governance and
management in public and nonprofit organizations (University of Southern California, 2015).
The University of Southern California (hereafter USC) has offered a public
administration degree since 1929 and is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. The
MPA degree is housed within the Sol Price School of Public Policy (USC Price), which was
ranked fourth among public affairs schools nationwide for the public management/administration
specialty (U.S. News & World Report, 2016) at the time of the study. In 1971, USC opened an
off-site campus located in Sacramento, California. It was important for USC to have a presence
in the capital of California, where the MPA program could recruit and educate students who
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 11
were interested in creating and implementing policy while attending school. This program made
it possible for full-time working professionals who wanted to improve their skills in creating and
implementing public policy to attend a graduate degree program.
Much like reflective practice, the definition of and driving forces underlying the
profession of public administration has changed and developed over time. Since its formation in
the 1940s, the identity of the field, to a considerable extent, has been inexorably linked to a
search for an educational focus in public administration and in public affairs in general (Powell
& Saint-Germain, 2016; Raadschelders, 2011). The profession has posited questions in an
attempt to define its purpose:
What is public administration? Are we a field, science, discipline or profession?
Are we a science or an art? Are we about theory or about practice? Are we a
political science or a science of politics, policy, and administration? Are we
about policy or administration? (King, Britton & Missik, 1996, p. 147).
In some sense, these questions involve intractable differences in how people see the purpose of
public service. Some would suggest that public administration focus solely on the impartial and
non-partisan implementation of laws. Others believe that the role of public administration
should be to facilitate democracy: “the New Public Service argues that the explicit consideration
of democratic values and citizenship by public administrators will have benefits in terms of
building communities, engaging citizens, and making government work more effectively”
(Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015, pg. 664). While these different perspectives may lead to
disagreements about the specifics of curriculum in a particular graduate program, the MPA
degree is the central element of academic public administration’s efforts to help educate public
managers (Cleary, 1990).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 12
The mission of USC Price “is to improve the quality of life for people and their
communities, here and abroad. [The mission is achieved] through education and research that
promote innovative solutions to the most critical issues facing society” (University of Southern
California, 2015). USC Price states that students in its degree programs will receive an
education that:
● Combines social sciences, professional expertise, and the resources of a great research
university to offer students breadth, depth, and variety as they pursue their interests and
design their programs.
● Centers on and values the relationships that develop between students and teachers.
● Offers both academic and relevant real-world experiences, and draws widely on the
expertise of networks of engaged counselors, advisors, alumni, and prominent
professionals.
● Encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, experimentation, and collaboration.
● Fosters a multidisciplinary and problem-solving ethic.
● Focuses broadly and inclusively on the issues, constituencies, structures, and institutions
engaged in public life – in both governance and the built environment.
● Utilizes the City of Los Angeles and the greater Southern California region as a living
laboratory in which to learn and put into practice the lessons of the classroom (University
of Southern California, 2015).
As the mission states, the MPA degree program’s purpose is to “foster a multi-disciplinary
and problem solving ethic” (University of Southern California, 2015). The MPA degree in
Sacramento is unique from many programs at USC Price in that it was developed for
professionals who work full-time and want to pursue their degrees simultaneously. Applicants
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 13
are suggested to have three to five years of work experience when applying to the program.
There is also an option for students to apply straight out of undergraduate school or without work
experience. Those students are required to enroll in a one-unit pre-service internship course,
which has the students participate in a semester long internship. Therefore, all students and all
graduates of the program have some form of work experience by the time they graduate.
As will be discussed more thoroughly in Chapter Two, the current requirements for the
MPA degree highlight the importance of reflective practice in the curriculum. The assignments
and activities facilitate the students reflecting on their own personal experience to apply the
theories and case studies being taught in the program. This practical experience and application
of knowledge are how students learn and retain concepts (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2011).
While this is a major component of both reflective practice and the MPA degree program
curriculum, there have been no studies to my knowledge that follow up with the graduates of the
MPA degree program and assess whether this is actually occurring or not. If we view the MPA
degree curriculum as an intervention, we should observe influence of the curriculum in the ways
that graduates make decisions post-graduation. To improve the potential outcomes of this MPA
degree curriculum, this study will evaluate the response of alumni to better inform the program
delivery for current and future students.
At the time that this study was conducted, there had been no post graduate surveys
conducted with the graduates of the USC Price Sacramento MPA program. The results of this
study should therefore give insight to the faculty and USC Price administration about how the
curricula and teaching of reflective practice directly impacts and benefits the graduates, and how
the curricula and teaching could be honed and improved.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 14
Statement of the Problem
There are two reasons that this study is timely and relevant: (1) USC Price in Sacramento
is facing a changing labor market and (2) there is increased competition in the region with more
MPA degrees offered by local and non-local universities. First, to adjust to changing demands of
the labor market, USC Price needs to stay current with what employers are looking for in new
hires. There are the standard skills, as described in the background of the problem, along with
new practices and technologies that will make MPA graduates attractive candidates for
employment. Second, USC Price needs to maintain relevancy because within the Sacramento
metropolitan area, there were three other institutes of higher education and one new university
that opened in the fall of 2016 – all of which offer the Master of Public Administration or Master
of Public Policy degrees.
Enrollment at the USC Price Sacramento campus has been growing over the years. The
entering class of 2015 was the largest cohort at 30 students, triple the number of students that
started in 2010. At that time, the USC Price Sacramento campus also offered the Master of
Health Administration (MHA) degree, however, due to low enrollment numbers, the MHA
degree program was discontinued in Sacramento. This study will only include the graduates of
the MPA degree.
This study will fill a gap in the lack of knowledge regarding what happens to MPA
graduates after they leave the degree program. USC Price in Sacramento does not track where
the MPA graduates work, if they changed jobs, or were promoted. There has been no formal
system put in place to collect this information from currently enrolled MPA students or alumni.
Consequently, the MPA program at USC Price School in Sacramento has not conducted a study
of the graduates after the program to understand what the applicable skills are from the program
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 15
or how they are using reflective practice. Therefore, there are no data with which to compare the
results of this study.
Purpose of the Study
As previously stated, the purpose of this study is to investigate how the MPA degree
program at USC Price in Sacramento has prepared its graduates to be effective leaders and
decision-makers, with a specific focus on reflective practice. This study asked alumni if and
how they were using reflective practice at their workplace using data collected through surveys
and interviews. By using retrospective data collection (asking the graduates to look back on their
time in graduate school and relate it to their career), the study sought to evaluate where the USC
Price Sacramento MPA degree program was performing well and where the degree program can
improve.
The accrediting body for MPA degree program, the Network of Schools of Public Policy,
Affairs and Administration (NASPAA), has included reflective practice as an integral part of the
learning outcomes for students in accredited MPA programs. Reflective practice promotes
deeper learning on the part of the students through critical thinking and application of new
knowledge. Reflective practice is incorporated into the curriculum at the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA program to enable the students to practice and develop the skills of self-
reflection. A focus on reflective practice is a useful measure to address the effectiveness of the
MPA degree because the concepts are scattered throughout most of the core required courses in
USC Price Sacramento’s MPA degree program. MPA graduates from USC Price in Sacramento
should have an understanding of reflective practice upon graduation, and this understanding
should be evidenced in their decision-making process in their work post-graduation. This topic
will be explored further in the literature review in Chapter Two.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 16
The study was designed to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA degree program specifically in relation to reflective practice. On average,
there were about 20 students enrolled annually in each cohort in Sacramento. Alumni who
graduated in the last five years from the time of the study, from 2012 through 2016, were
targeted for this evaluation. Two data collection strategies were used to collect data: an online
survey and interviews conducted in person. The questions on the survey addressed the larger
themes of the MPA degree curriculum, and follow-up interviews of five individuals, one from
each graduating cohort were conducted to supplement and validate the survey data. The
interviews were intended to help gain more insight into the changes that the graduates saw in
their professional skills due to the USC Price in Sacramento MPA program.
The research questions for this study were: (1) What are the perceptions of the USC Price
in Sacramento MPA degree program alumni regarding the extent to which the MPA degree
program prepared them for their career? And (2) in what ways do USC Price in Sacramento
MPA alumni describe their implementation of reflective practice and their decision-making
practices in the workplace?
Significance of the Study
This study sought to uncover how the knowledge, theories, and skills are being
implemented in the professional setting for graduates of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
degree, and to what extent they were developed as a result of the MPA program. To date, there
has been no research that I am aware of conducted on this population. Through surveys and
interviews, this research study sought to clarify what public administration means to the students,
what specific practices and theories have stayed with them post-graduation, and how reflective
practice is impacting their professional work.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 17
There are varied stakeholders involved with USC Price in Sacramento, including the
main University office in Los Angeles, the faculty, staff and advisory board in Sacramento, and
the students (past, present and future) of both sites. This study sought to demonstrate what is
working for the students from the perspective of the alumni of the USC Price in Sacramento
MPA degree program. In general, the results indicate that the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
degree program is fulfilling its student learning outcomes and the graduates have become better
leaders and more effective practitioners compared to before they matriculated.
The data collected in this study were designed to assist the faculty at USC Price in
Sacramento to understand how alumni are using skills and lessons learned in the MPA degree
program in the workplace. There will be different circumstances under which the graduates may
or may not be using what they learned in the MPA degree program in their workplace and the
study sought to clarify why such variations occur and the causes of such variations.
There has not been a study done on the graduates of USC Price in Sacramento’s MPA
program to assess their attitudes on the curriculum, what they think should be changed and if
they are using any of the lessons in particular on reflective practice. Since no research has been
conducted on this population, this study design provides insights on what knowledge the students
are finding the most beneficial after they complete the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree.
Limitations and Delimitations
Since USC Price in Sacramento first opened in 1971, there have been many students who
have studied in various degree programs either full or part-time. The exact number is unknown
as there were no comprehensive records, at the time of this study, of the different degree
programs that have been offered in Sacramento, least of all a record of the students who were
enrolled. Electronic records have been kept for the past few years with the USC Price in
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 18
Sacramento MPA degree showing that, from the fall cohort in 2012 to 2016, 106 students have
enrolled in the USC Price in Sacramento MPA program, with 82 graduating in the same time
span. There are a few factors that contribute to the difference in student numbers from
enrollment to graduation from 2012-2016. First, the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
program is a two-year program so the graduating class started two years prior; second, not all
students complete the program; third, some students do not follow the two-year curriculum
varying in completion time to finish the degree.
The survey was restricted to the last five years of graduates in order to maintain
consistency with similarity to program leadership and curriculum trends. The number of
students in each cohort has averaged around 20 people, and the total number of qualified subjects
eligible for the survey was 82. This study could be replicated with any degree program at any
school. However, because of the particular circumstances in Sacramento, the results of the study
may not be generalizable to the MPA program at USC Price’s Los Angeles campus, nor other
degree programs at USC Price. As a current employee of the University of Southern California,
access to the student records had been approved by the Director of the Price School in
Sacramento, however, no identifiable information is reported in this study. For full disclosure,
the researcher of this study is also a graduate from 2012 of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
degree program.
An anticipated difficulty with this study was finding common terminology to refer to the
various examples of reflective practice in the survey questions. There are different ways that
instructors taught reflective practice, and it was not always explicitly stated. Reflective practice
was often embedded in activities and lessons, for example, there were reflective journals that
students completed over the course of one class. In another class, students discussed what they
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 19
learned, what surprised them, and what they unlearned from the previous lesson (Callahan,
2013). The students in this class were also regularly asked to apply what they learned in the
classroom to their work experience and vice versa.
As a retrospective study design, this study relied on the participants to remember and be
able to articulate the changes in practice and other developmental differences they experienced
before entering the MPA degree program and after completion. As with other retrospective
study designs, there may be temporal bias. Without a baseline study from before the participants
entered the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program, there is no way to examine how the
students have changed other than retrospective accounts.
Definition of Terms
● Cohort: a group of people banded together and treated as a group (Cohort, n.d.). In the
USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program the students are grouped together for the
first year, where they take all classes in the same order.
● Critical reflection: a purposeful activity for making considered changes and
improvements to practice, knowledge and meanings made from learning and an
awareness of assumptions (Hickson, 2011; Larrivee, 2000; Mezirow, 1998).
● Organizational behavior: the study of the way people interact with others in their
organization and with the public, how they view their work, and how they serve those
communities (Denhardt, Denhardt, & Aristigueta, 2013).
● Public administration: the implementation of government policy; an academic discipline
that studies policy implementation and prepares civil servants for working in public
service (Janousek, 2017; Newland, 2012).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 20
● Public policy: a system of courses of action, regulatory measures, laws, and funding
priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its
representatives. Analyzing, evaluation and solving all aspects of policy, using
quantitative and qualitative data to develop assess and evaluate alternative approaches to
current and emerging issues (NASPAA, 2014).
● Reflective practice: a way of studying one’s own past experiences to improve the way
one works (Rodgers, 2002), a meaning-making process that relates those experiences to
create new knowledge (Dewey, 1938).
● Strategic planning: an organization’s process of defining its strategy, direction and
making decisions on allocation of resources to pursue a goal.
● Wicked problem: a problem that is not easily defined or resolved as they are complex and
interwoven between different disciplines, organizations, and stakeholders (Head &
Alford, 2015; Kettl, 2006).
Organization of the Study
This study is organized into five chapters. This chapter, Chapter One, was an overview
of the study, including background of the problem and the purpose of the study. Chapter Two is
the literature review where a synthesis of existing literature explains the history of reflective
practice and the MPA degree. The literature review also summarizes established theories,
especially of reflective practice. Chapter Three reviews the study methodology, explaining the
population, data collection and analysis. Chapter Four reports the results of the survey and
interviews. Chapter Five summarizes and expands on the findings, explores implications of the
results for new research questions, and how the study informs the practice for professionals in
the field.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 21
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the importance of reflective practice in the professional setting was
reviewed through the context of the research of Donald Schön (1983, 1987), John Dewey (1938),
and John Mezirow (1998). Specifically, I focus on how reflection-in-action and reflection-on-
action relate to the development of management and leadership traits through decision-making
processes that the Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree aims to teach its students.
This review of the literature will explore how reflective practice has been integrated into the
curricula of the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy (USC Price)
Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree at the Sacramento satellite campus and more
broadly on reflection in schools of public affairs from the perspective of the Network of Schools
of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), the accrediting non-profit
organization, through which the USC Price MPA degree program has been accredited
(NASPAA, 2014).
The USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program was designed and structured for
public administration practitioners. Students are expected to be working part or full-time, while
simultaneously pursuing their degree (USC Price School, 2016). The purpose of this study was
to look at how reflective practice either is or is not being implemented by graduates after
completing the degree program and to assess the applicability of the lessons taught in the MPA
program to the professional work environment. To this point in time, the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA graduates have not been evaluated in this way, that is, to observe the relevancy
of the MPA degree in the professional workplace.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 22
As will be discussed later in this chapter, the curricula for the USC Price in Sacramento
MPA degree program has built assignments into the syllabi that utilize reflective practice. This
study examines how the students are translating the theory and classroom activities after
graduation into the workplace.
The literature demonstrates that reflective practice is a valuable resource for professionals
and their development as leaders (Dewey, 1938; Schön, 1983; Mezirow, 1998) and MPA
programs across the US tout their ability to create effective leaders. NASPAA includes
reflective practice as a requirement for schools of public affairs to teach students and USC Price
in Sacramento incorporates it into the MPA program through written assignments, journals, and
in-class discussions.
Definition and History of Reflective Practice
Reflective practice has been defined in many ways. John Dewey, renowned educator and
philosopher, wrote in his text Education and Experience (1938) that learning is a continuous
process that requires the individual to be an active participant in her or his own learning. What
started as a theory for teaching spread throughout other disciplines such as nursing, social work,
education, and public affairs, led to the multitude of interpretations on the concept of reflective
practice (Hickson, 2011; Black & Plowright, 2010). According to Cranton (1992), reflection
follows a logical progression from awareness and examination of assumptions through
examination of sources and consequences of assumptions themselves. Reflective practice ranges
from analyzing a single aspect of a lesson to considering the ethical, social, and political
implications of teaching practice, and is rooted in the day-to-day operations of an organization
(Hammer & Stanton, 1997; Larrivee, 2008).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 23
Dewey (1938) considers that one of the purposes of reflection is to be conscious of the
history and past events that influence the mind’s current state. Once reflection transforms those
critical assumptions, the observations of the present can “turn into means of enriching thought
and action” (Miettinen, 2000, p. 63). Two criticisms of John Dewey’s ideas on reflection are that
(1) it assumes the challenge or problem must be solved and that reflection will help get to the
conclusion, and (2) he has a “rigid justificatory model” (Miettinen, 2000, p. 64). Dewey argues
that reflective thoughts are separate from action. For example, a reflective practitioner grappling
with a situation must first step away from the issue to start the reflective process before returning
with the appropriate knowledge (Hébert, 2015). Later in this chapter, Schön’s (1983, 1987)
concept of reflection, and its expansion of Dewey’s theory, will be discussed to qualify
experiential knowledge and differentiate types of reflections. However it is defined, reflective
practice is identified as being critical to the effective functioning of supporting professionals
(Magnuson & Norem, 2002; Strong, 2003).
In Dewey’s (1938) theory of inquiry, there are five steps that explain the process through
which a practitioner is faced with a problem and works through it to a solution. Step one, the
professional is confronted by a disturbance/uncertainty and previous solutions are not applicable.
When confronted with the problem, the professional moves to step two: intellectualizing and
defining the issue. Step three, the professional studies the conditions of the situation and forms a
hypothesis; step four, reasoning; step five, testing of the hypothesis in action, which leads to
either new ideas and concepts or a solution to the problem. The definition of reflective practice
that guides this study is based on the work of Dewey’s (1938) description of reflective inquiry as
the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or knowledge – a necessary practice
if practitioners want to create change and move away from routine.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 24
Reflective Practice Theory to Action
After Dewey (1938), the next major contributor to the development of the theory on
reflective practice is Donald Schön. In The Reflective Practitioner (1983), Schön built upon
Dewey’s work on reflective practice and expressed it as the ability to reflect on an action so as to
engage in a process of continuous learning. Schön (1983) explained that reflective practice asks
practitioners to trust their tacit knowledge as they reflect on their experiences. He separated the
process into two stages: reflection-in-action, which occurs while an event is in process, and
reflection-on-action, which occurs after an event is consciously undertaken.
Reflection-on-action is described as thinking through or analyzing a situation, subsequent
to the activity. There is time to process the practitioners’ thoughts and discuss with others as the
event has already occurred (Danielson, 2008). A reflective journal or debrief with colleagues
would be an example of reflection-on-action. Mezirow (1998) differentiates reflection from
thinking, as it requires awareness of assumptions and deliberation about values, beliefs, and
feelings. Reflection-in-action can be thought of as thinking on one’s feet. It involves looking
ahead, analyzing a situation, and coming up with a critical response (Schön, 1983).
The theories of reflective practice are important for this study in that they provide the
foundation for the current state of reflection in higher education institutions such as USC Price in
Sacramento. The definition of reflection is broad and varied, but it is widely agreed that
reflection is a tool for professionals to analyze events and convert thoughts and theories into
action. Schön (1987) explains that professionals have come to see that “the problems of the real-
world practice do not present themselves to practitioners as well-formed structures” (p. 4). By
focusing on knowledge and experience, those practitioners can work through challenges, which
relates to John Dewey’s model of reflective thought. Dewey (1938) approached reflection from
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 25
the framework of individuals and their role in community. By using evidence and reasoning,
people can develop into better problem solvers through rational thought. Reflective practice is a
process of critically assessing the content or premise of our efforts to interpret and give meaning
to an experience (Mezirow, 1998). Mezirow (1998) goes on to explain that the process is also a
simple awareness of an object, event or state, including awareness of a perception, thought,
feeling, disposition, intention, action, or of one’s habits of doing things. Reflective practice can
also mean letting one’s thoughts wander over something, taking something into consideration, or
imagining alternatives (p. 185).
Practitioners utilize reflection to better understand situations and connect concepts into
actionable steps to learn, grow and become a more effective leader (Schön & Rein, 1994).
Schön expressed that professionals use reflection to assess their actions, by giving thought to
everyday processes, and in so doing, professionals are able to better understand, evaluate and
communicate changes and their effectiveness (Turner-Mueke, 1986). It is important for public
administrators to be confident that they are able to make decisions with as much information that
is available to them and be efficient and effective when implementing those decisions.
Reflective Practice Integration in the MPA Curriculum
There are assignments built into the curriculum of the MPA degree that help facilitate the
practice of reflection in and outside of the classroom. The MPA curriculum is structured to help
address complex and wicked problems through the interdisciplinary work that occurs between
agencies and the many stakeholders and ways of thought that students engage. In his installation
remarks, USC Provost Michael Quick (2015) stated his goal for the university was to take on
“the most intractable, difficult, multifaceted problems of the day.” A wicked problem is a social
and cultural problem that is impossible to solve for a variety of different reasons including,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 26
incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, large
economic burden, and the tangle of connections with other problems (Head & Alford, 2015;
Kettl, 2006; Rittel & Webber, 1973). For example, problems such as poverty, health care access,
and homelessness are considered wicked problems. Students pursuing the MPA degree learn
how to define these types of problems, set goals, and deal with the tradeoffs of efficiency and
equity.
At USC Price, all students in the MPA program are required to complete 40 units of
coursework that is comprised of core courses, management competencies, and electives.
Reflective practice is incorporated throughout the courses but most heavily in a few core classes,
namely PPD 540 Public Administration and Society, PPD 500 Intersectoral Leadership, and
PPD 545 Human Behavior in Public Organizations – all classes taken during a student’s first
year in the USC Price MPA degree program.
In the first semester of the USC Price MPA, all students are required to take an
introductory course titled Public Administration and Society (PPD 540) as a foundation that lays
the groundwork for the rest of the MPA degree program. In this course, students are required to
discuss case studies and relate the readings to their professional organizations/ workplaces. The
discussions center around defining problems and learning how these challenges might be
addressed. Practicing public administrators often face unexpected situations and they use
reflection to think back on past experiences and create new opportunities (Schön, 1983;
Weschler, 1997). Eisenhardt (1989) writes in her research that decision makers that keep pace
with change are linked to strong performance (p. 544). By practicing reflection, the graduates
from the MPA program learn how to become better decision makers by learning form past case
studies and how to look at problems and discover unique solutions.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 27
Intersectoral Leadership also known as Cross-Sectoral Governance, refers to the roles
and combined strengths of the public, private and non-profit sectors in policy, planning and
development (PPD 500 syllabus, 2017). In the Intersectoral Leadership course (PPD 500), the
students are required to participate in a number of experiential learning experiences. In order to
gain the most from these activities, the class takes time after the activity to debrief the sessions.
The class instructor leads the discussion to prompt the students to reflect on what they learned
the day before to answer three questions: what did they learn, what did they unlearn and what
surprised them? Provided with simulation opportunities, “the reflective practices further
integrate theory and practice. Without reflection on decisions and processes, students have no
idea how to improve in future transactions or why they did or did not succeed” (Wills & Clerkin,
2009, p. 225). The exercise makes students apply what they learned to their own personal
experiences. The question of unlearning is a difficult concept that takes practice to develop over
time. According to Callahan (2013), the question of unlearning asks adults what skills,
knowledge, tools they have relied on in the past that are no longer valuable (p. 31). It may be
asking them about skills or practices that could be holding them back from professional
advancement (Callahan, 2013).
In the course Human Behavior in Public Organizations (PPD 545), the learning
objectives are to have the student able to “critically assess classical and contemporary
approaches” to organizational management. Students are expected to integrate theory with
practice and “increase their capacity for intellectual reflection and critical thinking” (PPD 545
syllabus, 2016). The goals are accomplished with a journal assignment where students are asked
to reflect on their past work experiences and describe those situations with the leadership
theories that they have been studying throughout the semester. The assignment asks that they
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 28
write about previous challenges and apply the theories that they learned throughout the duration
of the course to analyze how it may influence their behavior in the future. Reflective writing
should “seek out critical examination of relevant concepts: apply higher order thinking skills of
analysis, evaluation, and synthesis” (Wills & Clerkin, 2009, p. 221) and help learners connect
theory to practices across disciplines.
Strategic Planning in the Public Sector (PPD 673), is an elective course offered at the
USC Price Los Angeles main campus. The students who enroll in this class are required to travel
to Los Angeles for the in-person meetings. The purpose of the course is to focus on the areas of
strategic planning including formulation, implementation and evaluation (PPD 673 syllabus,
2016). In addition to learning the process of how to develop, implement and monitor strategic
plans, students are also taught how to evaluate them; what are the strengths, weaknesses, what
works, what does not work and why. The course requires students to work in teams to
collaborate on assignments and presentations. One of the projects is on reflection and feedback
in strategic planning.
The final course of the USC Price MPA program, Capstone in Public Administration
(PPD 546) taken in the second year of the degree program engages the students in the integration
and application of skills learned in the program through (1) a real-time, real-life organizational
consultation project, (2) the development of a written framework for public administration, (3)
creating a personal Management Advancement Plan, and (4) practicing contemporary skills in
collaborative leadership, creative leadership, and personal leadership. The focus overall is on
sharpening skills in the professional practice of public administration by putting into action the
competencies developed in the core USC Price MPA courses.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 29
The capstone project requires students to work in groups and act as a consultant to actual
client organizations who can use assistance on semester long projects. The students have to
bring together all of the skills that they learned in the MPA program and present solutions and
recommendations to their client organizations. This is an application of reflection-on-action as
well as reflection-in-action since the students have to work from previous experiences in the
MPA degree program to apply problem solving techniques to their current situation. It is a prime
example of how the degree should work for the students after they complete the program. As
Bore and Wright (2009) state, by the end of the program, students should be able to “deal with
complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgments in the absence of
complete data, and communicate their conclusions clearly” to their audiences (p. 254).
The USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program is focused on creating a better
manager and leader in whatever organization the student works in currently or may work in upon
graduation. The program recruits students who are working professionals. The admissions
officer for the USC Price School in Sacramento claims that “anywhere from 90 to 95% of the
students at the Sacramento campus are employed while they attend the MPA program full-time
(A. Stayton, personal communication, March 2017). Courses are taught by both faculty
researchers and practitioners with years of professional experience. The MPA program at USC
Price in Sacramento was specifically created for working professionals so they could use their
experiences to apply theory, make changes and adapt their habits in the workplace. Darling-
Hammond (2000, p. 10) agrees with Schön that:
most people learn more powerfully when new ideas are connected to what they already
know and have experienced; when they use real-world problems to test their knowledge;
when they are given clear, high goals with practice in reaching them; when they can build
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 30
on what they have previously learned; and when their own interests and strengths are a
springboard for learning.
It is the conversation in the classroom that helps students connect their experiences with
the larger conversation (Callahan, 2013). When applying to the program, the applicants are
required to have three to five years of professional work experience, or they can participate in an
internship class prior to beginning first year core courses. This is to ensure that the student has
real world experiences to draw from when working through the MPA degree program. Many of
the assignments require the student to reflect on situations at their workplace to expand on
theories taught in class, such as the journal assignment where theoretical concepts from the
classroom are applied to the student’s real-life work environment.
Schön (1987) writes that engaging in reflective practice enables professionals to
communicate and process what needs to occur, how to make it happen, describe the purpose for
the action, and understand its impact on decision-making. The assignments and activities in the
USC Price MPA program reinforce this type of connection between new theories and ideas to
personal knowledge and experiences to create a dynamic learning environment with reflective
practice.
Importance of Reflective Practice in MPA Studies
The USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree was developed with the intent to establish a
field of study for public servants and strengthen their ability to solve challenges that have not
presented themselves before. The skills acquired by completing the coursework were designed
to improve managerial qualities and help impart an ability to understand systems and
organizational structures. The public administrator needs to have the ability to acquire
knowledge, communicate, and the desire to be a life-long learner. Reflective practice is one of
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 31
the tools that have been integrated into the MPA curriculum to help develop the mindful
practitioner who can work with diverse populations and among different sectors to create
innovative solutions to wicked problems.
One of the main goals of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree is to prepare students
for future administrative challenges and to acquire further knowledge in the pursuit of public
service. Developing this ability and capacity requires that the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
degree program result in multiple outcomes: general skills and knowledge; critical and
communication skills; and overall personal, intellectual, and moral development (King, Britton,
& Missik, 1996). Reflective practice assists in the growth of purposeful thinking and ensures
that thoughts and ideas do not become routine.
The USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program develops leadership as a skill and
has incorporated reflective practice in the curriculum to help facilitate those leadership
enhancing experiences. Through written assignments, discussions in class and activities/
exercises, students learn how to use reflection to develop leadership skills during the MPA
program. A large proportion, 35 percent, of students who complete degrees from public affairs
schools work in government at the local, state and federal levels (NASPAA, 2015). Effective
public administrators are the result of the “cognitive development which guides the acquisition
of necessary skills for professional practice” (King, Britton, & Missik, 1996, p. 155). Leadership
involves becoming critically reflective of assumptions and participating in discourse to validate
beliefs, intentions, values and feelings (Mezirow, 1998).
Reflective Practice Framework
Dewey (1938) described reflective practice as “the active, persistent and careful
consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of grounds that support it
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 32
and the further consideration to which it tends” (p. 9). Students who learn reflective practice and
engage in this deeper thinking can improve their decision-making skills and have a better
understanding of the impact they are making on the larger community.
Rodgers (2002, p. 856) attempts to consolidate Dewey’s ideas on reflections, condensing
them down to four phases:
1) Presence to experience;
2) Description of experience;
3) Analysis of experience; and
4) Intelligent action/experimentation.
These phases describe the process of recognizing a situation and attempting to identify or define
the problem. In analyzing the experience, the practitioner is searching for explanations and
pulling from previous experiences to generate a new solution. Reflection must include action to
complete the learning process. Experiencing a problem and developing a response is different
from reacting automatically (Dewey, 1938; Rodgers, 2002). As graduates of the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA degree face new situations and problems, they will experience these steps of
reflection – of examining an issue, struggling to work through previous assumptions to come up
with a transformed analysis of the experience (Larrivee, 2000).
Some of these situations are considered wicked problems, which appear to be resistant to
comprehensive solutions, they are complex and unpredictable (Kettl, 2006; Rittel & Webber,
1973). While the solutions are difficult to come by, there are methods to create structures of
public management to respond to these issues (Head & Alford, 2015). Public administrators who
practice critical reflection can critique and examine their previous assumptions to understand
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 33
how to use the knowledge to create strategies for dealing with these difficult situations (Hickson,
2011).
Reflection serves a larger purpose of transforming information into meaningful action. It
is significant to organizational learning and change. The MPA degree program needs reflective
practice in its curriculum to broaden the field of knowledge, bring awareness, and lead to
intelligent action (Rodgers, 2002). The purpose of public administration is to make government
work more efficiently and effectively (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015) while it is simultaneously
filled with tension from opposing interests (King, Britton & Missik, 1996). Public administrators
must deal with problems that have never been addressed and reflective thought helps the
practitioner create solutions to these challenges by “not endorsing present standards of
operation” (Larrivee, 2000, p. 297), but instead applying inter-sectoral thinking and offering
insight into the unpredictable nature of complex problems (Bore & Wright, 2009).

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 34
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
As stated in Chapter One, USC Price in Sacramento has been offering the MPA degree
since 1971. The purpose of the USC Price Sacramento MPA degree program is to develop
effective administrative professionals that will be able to successfully work through new and
complex challenges. However, the graduates of the USC Price Sacramento MPA degree
program have never been evaluated to assess the claims of the program. There was no contact
database, research, or any kind of follow up information on how the graduates were doing or
using the lessons they were taught in the program. Despite these limitations, this study looked at
what USC Price Sacramento MPA degree program practices graduates thought were the most
useful through surveys and interview, and how they were applying them to their workplace and
professional development.
The research questions for this study were: (1) What are the perceptions of the USC Price
in Sacramento MPA alumni regarding the extent to which the degree program prepared them for
their career? And (2) in what ways do USC Price in Sacramento MPA alumni describe their
implementation of reflective practice and their decision making practices in the workplace?
Qualitative inquiry, which “focuses on meaning in context, requires a data collection
instrument that is sensitive to underlying significance when gathering and interpreting data”
(Merriam, 2009, p. 14). Because this population has not been studied in this manner before, a
more qualitative study design (retrospective survey and follow-up interviews) was the most
appropriate. A more standard survey study design would presuppose that there were measurable
variables with standard responses (Creswell, 2014).

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 35
Participant Selection
Initial contact with potential study participants was an introductory email message to let
the alumni of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA program from 2012-2016 know about the study
and the role of the researcher and the University. This also served as a method to verify email
addresses, as the school’s records were not up to date. A second email contained a link to access
the online survey questionnaire, with a PDF copy of the questions attached to the email in case
the potential study participant was unable to access the online version.
The USC Price in Sacramento MPA 2012-2016 alumni contact information that was kept
on record included the graduate’s name, degree completion year, school email address and
occasionally a personal email address. Information about the graduate’s employment was not
maintained consistently. The survey questionnaire contained questions about the purpose of the
MPA degree in general as well as elective coursework specific to the USC Price in Sacramento
MPA degree program. From the survey responses, five individuals were selected for follow-up
interviews in-person or by phone, covering more in-depth discussions of their professional life
after graduation from the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program. The study aimed to
provide a broader range of understanding about how the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
has aided, and benefited, the graduates; Merriam (2009) stated, “we can only know what we
experience by attending to perceptions and meanings” (p. 9).
This study surveyed USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program graduates from
2012 through 2016. This was to control for the changes in the USC Price in Sacramento
administration, which had gone through some significant changes throughout the decades, for
example, in 2012, there was a change in leadership. Additionally, the contact information was
more likely to be up to date with the more recent graduates.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 36
The survey pool consisted of 82 graduates who graduated over a five-year span from the
USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program. Depending on the year, the program enrolled
between 15 and 30 students per academic year. Access to alumni contact information was
available through the USC Price in Sacramento MPA student spreadsheets. The information was
only accessible to the USC Price in Sacramento faculty and staff. The Director of the USC Price
in Sacramento program gave permission to use the email addresses of the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA alumni to conduct the study. From the survey results, the candidates for
interviewing were selected using the following criteria: (1) survey respondents who provided
their contact information to volunteer for an interview, (2) survey respondents who were working
in the Sacramento region, (3) survey respondents who represented one of the graduating cohorts
(to ensure a distribution of alumni interviewees across the cohort years), and (4) survey
respondents who represented local, county, state, federal governments, the private and nonprofit
sectors (for a cross section of different professional sectors).
Data Collection
Survey
The purpose for conducting an online survey was to reach as many of the target USC
Price in Sacramento 2012-2016 MPA alumni as possible. The survey request was emailed out
twice. The first introduced the study and obtained the current contact information of the
graduate (see Appendix B). In the online questionnaire, the final question asked the graduate
respondent to opt into an in-person interview, the goal of which was to get richer data on the
reflective practices of the graduates (see Appendix C). The second email served as a reminder to
those who had not yet responded that the survey was still open and to thank those who had
responded (see Appendix B).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 37
The survey link was sent via email to all of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA graduates
from 2012-2016, all 88 graduates during that time period. Of the 88, there were 82 graduates
who were eligible for inclusion in this study: they attended the majority of their classes at USC
Price in Sacramento, they graduated with a MPA degree between the years of 2012 and 2016,
and they were alive at the time of the survey. The ten-minute survey questionnaire was
administered electronically through Google Forms. The site displays the results in a number of
different ways and kept the identity of the participants unknown if they did not share their
personal information, which meant that the survey was anonymous, unless respondents self-
identified. The survey link was distributed by email in the spring of 2017. Of the 82 candidate
subjects, 30 responses were collected, and five individuals interviewed.
The questions developed into three categories: (1) demographic questions to obtain
general information about the subject’s professional careers, (2) reflective practice application
questions including how they defined the term and how they used reflective practice at work, (3)
their lasting impressions of the MPA program and what they recall as significant lessons.
Over a two-week period, emails were sent to the 2012-2016 graduates of the USC Price
in Sacramento MPA program, requesting that they complete an 18 question survey questionnaire
administered online through Google Forms. The questions ranged from demographic
information to open-ended inquiries regarding their employment status, both while they were
enrolled in the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program and at the time of the survey in
Spring 2016. Again, the criteria for inclusion for the survey were being a graduate from the USC
Price in Sacramento MPA program from 2012-2016, and having taken the majority of the
classwork in Sacramento. A breakdown of the response rate per cohort is provided in Table 1.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 38
Graduating Cohort
Year
Response Rate Percentage
2012 10 out of 20 50.0%
2013 3 out of 16 18.8%
2014 5 out of 14 35.7%
2015 7 out of 17 41.2%
2016 5 out of 15 33.3%
Total 30 out of 82 Avg. 36.6%
Table 1. Survey Response Rate

Links to the online survey questionnaire were distributed to 82 graduates from USC Price
in Sacramento’s MPA degree program, 30 were completed, providing an overall response rate of
36.6 percent. The number of alumni who were eligible for the survey totaled 82, a difference of
six from the 88 who graduated from the USC program between 2012 through 2016. There were
five students who were not eligible for the survey because of coursework taken elsewhere and
one graduate had passed away. From the 30 responses, five graduates were selected to be
interviewed, one from each graduating cohort. The interviewees were given pseudonyms and
their identifiable information removed or masked for these findings. Specific information
regarding the demographics of the survey and interview participants is provided in the next
section.
Interview
The purpose of the follow-up interview was to examine the individual ways in which the
USC Price in Sacramento MPA graduates were applying what they learned in the MPA degree
program to their current professional work. The interview questions were open-ended to allow
the subjects to answer more broadly. The semi-structured interview style was flexible to allow
each interview to develop around the experiences of the individual graduate (see Appendix D).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 39
There were a few interview questions that built on the survey questions to assist in getting the
interviewees to think about their time during their USC Price in Sacramento MPA studies. By
using a retrospective interview question process, consisting of going back to the beginning of
their USC Price in Sacramento MPA program experience and moving forward in chronological
order, the interviewees were asked to reflect on how their abilities changed and developed over
time.
The online survey questionnaire asked respondents to volunteer to be interviewed as a
follow-up. Twenty-five of the respondents shared their contact information to be candidates for
the interview. From the list of volunteers, one respondent from each year/cohort, or graduating
year, was selected for a one-on-one interview. They were also chosen for the breadth of the
sectors that they worked in: local government, state government, non-profit, education and
private sector. The interviews provided an opportunity to gain deeper knowledge and
information from the study participants, with richer detail than what was obtainable through the
online surveys. The meetings with the interviewees were set at a time and location that was
convenient for them, at a mutually agreed upon date and time. The researcher read through and
shared a copy of a consent form (see Appendix A) with the research subject. The locations were
quiet enough that the conversations could be audio-recorded without interruption. If they
preferred to not be recorded, then handwritten notes were taken. The interviews averaged
between 30 minutes to 45 minutes to conduct. If an interviewee wanted to continue the
conversation, a follow up meeting (in person or over the phone), or emailed reflections were
accepted.
To transcribe the taped interview results, an interview log method was used. The
interview log method consisted of listening to each recorded interview in five minute increments
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 40
and summarizing the segments with time stamps. Using this approach, only the sections that
contained information relevant to the research questions were transcribed, thus saving time and
resources on the transcription process.
Artifacts
In order to observe a snapshot in a moment of time, the syllabi from the final capstone
course, PPD 546, was used as source material. The USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
program does not require a dissertation or thesis paper. Instead, all of the knowledge and skills
that are learned throughout the MPA program are applied to the final culminating capstone
project. This is a practical assignment where the students are put into working groups and are
paired with a real world client with whom they consult.
The language in the curriculum for the capstone course describes the purpose of the
course PPD 546 (Spring 2016 syllabus):
The focus overall is on sharpening skills in the professional practice of public
administration by putting into action the competencies developed in the core MPA
courses. Through your work in the capstone project and other activities, you will
demonstrate the abilities that are identified as universal competencies for all accredited
schools of public affairs and administration: to lead and manager in public governance; to
participate in and contribute to the policy process; to analyze, synthesize, think critically,
solve problems and make decisions; to articulate and apply a public service perspective;
to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and
citizenry.
The syllabus of PPD 546 outline what the MPA program and more broadly what the USC
Price School in Sacramento MPA program hopes to provide as insight into the learning
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 41
objectives for the students in terms of goals, skills and competencies, both in the course and after
graduation. Copies of the syllabi for each class offered at the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
program are kept on file, are public information, and readily obtainable.
Data Analysis
Using the various techniques of case study (survey, interviews and artifacts) were used to
validate the information collected in this study through triangulation (Merriam, 2009). As a
graduate of the USC Price School in Sacramento MPA program and employee of the university
at the time of the study. I am positioned in a unique situation where I am both a graduate of the
USC Price in Sacramento MPA program and I am currently employed by USC in Sacramento. I
have support from the administration at USC Price in Sacramento and access to the alumni lists,
syllabi, and other administrative documents.
Concerns about selection bias responses should be minimal as the issue was anticipated
and minimized. The alumni of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA program were prompted to
give candid responses. As the study participants have all completed their MPA degree
requirements, there is little fear of negative repercussions from USC Price in Sacramento.
Among the benefits of the study, the responses from the graduates will assist in making the USC
Price in Sacramento MPA degree program stronger to benefit future students as well as create a
reputational benefit for the alumni.
The research conducted in this study was aligned to the reflective practice framework that
was established in Chapter Two, following the research of Dewey (1938), Schön (1987) and
Rodgers (2002). Dewey (1938) describes reflections as an active, constant consideration of
one’s actions and their implications. It follows a logical progression from awareness to an
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 42
examination of consequences (Cranton, 1992). Rodgers (2002) condenses Dewey’s ideas on
reflection into four phases that was used for the framework of this study:
1. Presence to experience: perceiving, having an awareness of a situation and not jumping
to conclusions when trying to identify or define an issue.
2. Description of experience: stepping back from a situation to see the whole picture,
searching for explanations and pulling from previous experiences to understand the issue.
3. Analysis of experience: possibilities are being generating and connections starting to
be made at this phase, “a series of intellectual dry runs through the problem/ question and
its various conclusions” (Rodgers, 2002, p. 854).
4. Intelligent action/ experimentation: after careful thought, considering actions that are
intelligent and different from previous actions.
In analyzing experiences, the practitioner is searching for explanations and pulling from
previous experiences to come up with new solutions. Reflection must include action to complete
the learning process. Experiencing a problem and developing a response is different from
reacting automatically (Dewey, 1938; Rodgers, 2002). As graduates of the MPA degree face
new situations and problems, they will go through these steps of reflection - of examining an
issue, struggling to work through previous assumptions to come up with a transformed analysis
of the experience (Larrivee, 2000).
Reflection serves a larger purpose of transforming thoughts and experiences into
meaningful action (Callahan, 2013). It is significant to organizational learning and change.
Public administration needs reflective practice in its curricula as it broadens the field of
knowledge, brings awareness, and leads to intelligent action (Rodgers, 2002).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 43
The participants of the survey shared that they engage in reflection at various times in
their decision-making processes. In the coursework of the MPA, students were asked to apply
the theories and concepts they were learning about in the classroom to real world application of
the steps outlined by the research of Rodgers (2002) where the students though back on
experiences, analyzed them and created a new plan of action for how to deal with those
challenges in the future.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 44
CHAPTER FOUR
FINDINGS
The MPA degree at the University of Southern California, at the time of the study, sought
to develop professionals who were able to tackle organizational challenges and unknown public
policy issues of the future. This study was conducted to fill a gap in knowledge by surveying
and interviewing graduates from USC Price in Sacramento’s MPA degree between the years of
2012 and 2016 on their perceptions of how the program helped them with their careers. From
the survey and interviews, three themes emerged from the data analysis:
1. The study respondents were using and applying the MPA degree as a tool for professional
development and upward career mobility.
2. The three types of coursework that emerged from the analysis of survey and interview
data that the respondents cited as the most beneficial for their professional careers were
human factor courses: human behavior/ organizational theory, leadership and strategic
planning.
3. The respondents demonstrated and shared that they were going through different
reflective phases (Rodgers, 2002) and attributed to the MPA degree program improved
awareness and ability to think, learn, and develop problem solving skills with reflection.
Research Methods
The study used, as its research methods, an electronic web-based survey and interviews.
The electronic web-based survey link was sent to 82 graduates to obtain demographic
information and gain insight about the impressions of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
program. Thirty responses were received over a two week period, a response rate of 36.6%.
From the 30 survey responses, 25 volunteered to be interviewed; from that pool, five individuals
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 45
were selected, one from each graduation year for one-on-one interviews. The 45-60 minute
interviews allowed for a deeper dive into the graduates’ experiences with the MPA degree and
reflective practice. All of the information has been coded and pseudonyms used to maintain the
confidentiality of the participants.
Findings and Themes
From the analysis of the survey and interviews, there were three main themes that
emerged:
Theme 1: Professional mobility – The respondents referred to job promotions, upward
mobility and career change 28 times in the survey results. This frequency of response suggested
that professional mobility was a major factor in the respondents deciding to pursue an MPA
degree and what they hoped to get out of the program.
Theme 2: Impact of human factor coursework – The most frequently cited courses that
the respondents recalled using in their current work were human behavior/ organizational
development, leadership, and strategic planning. All of these courses center around the human
factor, in that they emphasize interpersonal management methods and how they work within
groups and organizations.
Theme 3: Reflection as a tactic– While often cited in the survey results, all of the
interviewees indicated that the concepts and approaches from these classes were beneficial to
their professional growth. The respondents used reflection to look back on their time in the
MPA degree program to consider if they would recommend the program to others and strategize
ways to ensure professional growth.
The research questions that guided in the development of these themes were:
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 46
RQ 1: What are the perceptions of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program
alumni regarding the extent to which the MPA degree program prepared them for their careers?
RQ 2: In what ways do USC Price in Sacramento MPA alumni describe their
implementation of reflective practice and their decision-making practices in the workplace?
Research question one revealed the themes of professional mobility and impact of the
coursework. Research question two revealed the theme of reflection practice.
Analysis of Research Question One
The first research question asked what the perception of the MPA degree program the
USC Sacramento graduates held and their thoughts on how it prepared them for their careers.
Analysis across the series of questions in the electronic survey and in-person interviews found
the themes of career mobility and the impact of the human factor coursework.
Professional Mobility.
The findings from the survey portion of the study reported that many of the respondents
were looking to gain the skills, confidence, and professional network to change their career
trajectory. The respondents stated that ‘job promotion/ upward mobility’ were the main
outcomes they hoped to gain from the MPA program. To these graduates, the value of the MPA
was being able to demonstrate the various leadership techniques and skills to their employers and
show their value to their organization. Analysis of the responses to the range of four different
questions on careers found that upward mobility was a consistent theme expressed in several
ways – job change, career, networking, and promotion. Respondents wrote in these terms more
than 80% of the survey answers.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 47
“The networking alone has been crucial to my success as a public
administrator… I earned a deeper level of understanding around policy
setting not just at the state level but at all levels of government.”

Cohort 2012
“It turned my past work experience into advanced, marketable skills and
prepared me well for management/leadership.”

Cohort 2013
“Simply put, I do not have the career I do without the networking
opportunities afforded me by USC and the MPA program.”

Cohort 2013
“Without the MPA degree I would not have developed the skills and
training in association management necessary for my new job title and
responsibilities.”

Cohort 2013
“All of the positions that I have gotten to date, have been gotten because I
became a Trojan. I would not have the career I have today without USC.”

Cohort 2014
“The degree has opened doors to new opportunities within my current job.
Further, the skills I obtained over the course of my education have led me
to excel and thus advance in my workplace.”

Cohort 2016
Table 2. Selection of responses regarding professional mobility from the online survey

Table 2 highlights the patterns in the data regarding the graduates’ responses to
professional mobility outcomes from the MPA program. In terms of negative responses, there
was concern expressed by a few respondents (n=3, or 10%), which revolved around external
factors such as tuition cost, the return on investment, and the benefits of employment. There was
one respondent who could not identify specific benefits to completing the MPA degree “not
confident that [she or he] could pinpoint the benefit of an MPA degree.” A different graduate
stated that the “MPA is not highly valued in the public sector, many jobs just require a bachelor’s
degree.” However, professionals from these sectors continued to enroll in the degree program.
Forty-three percent (n=13) of the respondents stated that they worked in the public sector (local,
state, and federal) while enrolled in the MPA program.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 48
The USC Sacramento MPA program was developed to allow students to continue
working full-time while simultaneously pursuing their education. Ninety-six percent (n=29) of
the respondents were employed either full or part-time while enrolled in the MPA degree. In the
words of Graduate A, who graduated in 2012, “I think when you’re working, having work-based
learning as well as studying at the same time, that is key. You’re just reinforcing everything
you’re learning.” Graduate A shared that she used the MPA to obtain a job that aligned with her
values and interests and took on increased leadership responsibilities along the way. Another
graduate shared “while in the program, I felt my workplace provided a real-world complement to
the academic foundation of the MPA program.” The MPA degree program, according to the
literature, may result in multiple outcomes – general skills and knowledge, critical and
communication skills, overall personal, intellectual and moral development (King, Britton, &
Missik, 1996).
Scholars have identified features of MPA programs as instrumental to the development of
public administrators (Janousek, 2017), some of those elements include the program design,
course curriculum and program outcomes. The USC MPA degree program was developed with
the working professional in mind. Having working professionals in the classroom and making
them relate their work experiences to the coursework, was to make them engage in reflective
proactive regularly throughout the degree program. Reflective practice had the added influence
to assist in the growth of purposeful thinking and helped the survey and interview respondents
from stagnating in their work, as evidenced by the high number of job changes. Dewey (1938)
considered reflection to be that a person was conscious of past events that influence the present,
which is what the MPA degree helps the students learn. Public administrators have to deal with
issues and challenges that have not been previously dealt with. They cannot rely on past or
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 49
present standards, but apply reflective and complex thinking to situations to find solutions to
these problems (Bore & Wright, 2009; Larrivee, 2000).
Graduate D graduated from the MPA degree program in 2015 with two job offers and
was happy to have a choice in his future. He decided to accept a position where he thought he
could move up into different roles. However, he learned that the job kept him isolated in a
cubicle “crunching numbers in Excel” all day. Graduate D stated, “I started looking for other
ways to advance myself in the healthcare field and understanding what I could do to advance
myself.” The student’s desire for upward mobility and potential growth kept him attuned to the
job opportunities and what it could provide him in the future. The literature suggests that
reflection enables observations of the present into “enriching thought and action” (Miettinen,
2000) and connect concepts into actionable steps (Schön & Rein, 1994) which was evidenced in
Graduate D’s desire for professional growth.
Because of the course content in the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree, Graduate D
wanted to be able to have a larger impact on the “systems” and help sharpen the decisions that
directly impacted the public. He switched jobs after about a year and half after graduation and
found the professional satisfaction he was seeking at his position in state government. “I really
found [Professor A] and [Professor B’s] classes to be really fascinating so I wanted to do
something more in policy, use my writing skills, and maybe see something from a bigger
picture.” From the survey responses, one graduate from 2013 wrote, “it turned my past work
experience into advanced, marketable skills and prepared me well for management/leadership.”
The data, including the selected quotes in Table 2, suggested the significance of the respondent’s
acknowledgment of his desire for future professional mobility. As reflective practice is critical
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 50
to effective functioning of supporting professionals (Magnuson & Norem, 2002; Strong, 2003), it
is also critical in their motivations for choosing the type of work they go into.
After completing the USC Price MPA, 66.7% (n=20) of the respondents stated they had
changed jobs. The survey did not ask questions about the motivations for moving, or why a third
of them had stayed in the same organizations. Ninety-six percent (n=29) of the respondents
shared that they had held a different position (including within the same organization), at least
one time since starting the MPA program. Two respondents shared that they had held as many
as seven different positions since starting the degree. This could be an indicator that the MPA
degree program helped the graduates with their confidence to ask for new roles or leave their job
and seek alternative employment. From the survey results, we cannot tell the motivations behind
the changes in positions or if these are promotions or lateral moves, simply that there were
changes.
Fifty percent (n=15) had been working at their current position for 1-5 years, 43% (n=13)
were at their job for less than one year, 6% (n=2) had been at their current job position for 6-10
years, and no one claimed to be over ten years at the same position. This meant the two
respondents who reported that they were at their job for over six years had been working at the
same position since before they started the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program and
were still there at the time of the study. One of the respondents who shared she or he was in the
same job for over six years shared that she or he was working in education as a teacher. She/he
wrote “the MPA program gave me the opportunity to sharpen some of the skills I gained in the
workplace [qualitative research, reflection, formalized processes for data inquiry and analysis];
these are skills that I continue to use when collaborating with colleagues and meeting with
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 51
community stakeholders.” Although this respondent did not change jobs, s/he was able to share
development into a more effective professional, using increased skills from the Program.
Coursework Impact.
The USC Price MPA program takes theoretical concepts and applies them practically
through the curriculum. The respondents reported that for the most part they were better able to
face the “wicked” problems that are associated with public service. As Weschler (1997) wrote,
MPA students “become agents of their own learning” (p. 387) by appreciating existing paths,
finding new ones, and creating alternate ways.
There were a range of four questions related to the coursework, such as “What skills or
lessons do you use from the MPA degree in your workplace?” Across these questions, the most
frequent response given was the course on human behavior and organizational theory. The
theories and ideas made an impact as evidenced by the frequency with which they mentioned
Human Behavior in Public Organizations (PPD 545). A core curricular course, PPD 545 taught
students how to navigate and manage both organizational and professional relationships. This
aligned with the other survey responses, indicating that the “soft skills of navigating and
organization,” “change management,” and organizational behavior, development, assessment,
and frameworks were important to the graduates.
“I particularly found the human behavior class to be useful in my
position as a new supervisor.”

Cohort 2016
“Yes, [the MPA] allowed me to learn about organizational
leadership and taught me practical skills to implement as a leader.
It also gave me several opportunities for practicing public
speaking.”

Cohort 2016
Table 3. Selection of responses regarding coursework impact from online survey

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 52
Graduate C completed the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree in 2014 and had been
working in professional development training since starting the degree program. At the time of
the study, organizational behavior was a major component to getting to the outcomes she was
seeking from the program curriculum. Graduate C said that she “constantly utilized what I
learned from the classroom to my work projects. I used it to help my clients to reorganize their
organizations, understanding behavior, reflect and analyze situations.” She continued, “as a
senior leader within my company I have to make decisions on a daily basis that impact my
clients, internal staff and citizens [through public policy]. Following my [MPA] degree I was
promoted and am in a rewarding career. My confidence with public speaking increased, and
many of the OB [organizational behavior] and leadership lessons have been applied to my team.”
The data point shows that the respondents were not only using the MPA degree program
knowledge practically, but using theories and teaching methods for others. Schön (1983) wrote
that practitioners must trust their tacit knowledge as they reflect, and going through the MPA
degree helps develop that trust in their knowledge and experiences.
Graduate E was the most recent of the graduates in the set of interviews, having
completed the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree in 2016. In her work as a school
administrator and teacher at a community college, she said that she had been able to utilize many
of the lessons and skills from the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree in both of her places of
work. “What I most appreciate however, are the skills that I learned in understanding
organizations and implementing – learning how to work well with others and impact productive
change or just be a leader amongst my peers.” And that has instilled in her the overall
importance of reflection to be a better professional:
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 53
“I learned a lot about myself [...] I learned that everybody has their own style, good, bad
or indifferent, and sometimes just thinking about who you are in the situation ad
recognizing you don’t always have to be right, and that sometimes it’s just better to keep
the peace and put your head down and get your work done as opposed to causing more
problems.”
Across the range of course related questions, the next two most frequently reported skills
were leadership and collaboration with colleagues. From the interview results, it appeared that
the respondents used strategic planning as a skill for clarify personal, team, or organizational
direction. They came away with tangible processes of working with people that they could
demonstrate as evidence of learning and use for future growth. Graduate C learned the most
from the Los Angeles campus-based strategic planning course. She uses the lessons and
readings from this class the most often post degree completion.
Respondents reported wanting to learn about leadership and management skills and they
reported that this was one of the main takeaways after program completion. There was one
respondent who stated “no, unfortunately” that she or he claimed to utilize nothing from the USC
Price in Sacramento MPA degree program in her or his current position.
Related the most frequent responses were human factors type of issues, such as working
with a range of people skills in negotiation, collaboration, explaining decision making. Some of
the highlights of the other responses were as follows:

“The political aspects of understanding confluences of interest is very
helpful.”

Cohort 2012
“It's hard to summarize, every class I took applies to what I do on a
daily basis. I would say that applying reason to my decision making
Cohort 2012
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 54
was a key takeaway from my time at USC. We can't do everything for
everyone, but ensuring some level of reason is applied to my decision
making processes allows me to stand by those decisions when they are
brought into question.”

“Honestly the best lessons were learning to delegate/trust your
colleagues and how to make decisions in a more focused and ethical
manner.”

Cohort 2013
“There were several exceptionally useful courses, but the top for me
was Strategic Planning [in LA], which helped me better focus on how to
set and achieve relevant goals, both personally and professionally.”

Cohort 2013
"Strategic plan formation, process improvement, organizational
behavior theory and leadership theory are all specific skills that I apply
on a continual basis."

Cohort 2015
“I have gained numerous skills that I lacked before. Examples are
strategic planning, policy analysis, and overall project management.”

Cohort 2015
“The rigor of the program coupled with the expertise of the professors
exposes students to the process involved with making public policy,
program analysis, and working with team members to achieve common
goals.”

Cohort 2015
“…allowed me to learn about organizational leadership and taught me
practical skills to implement as a leader.”

Cohort 2016
Table 4. Selection of responses to what course/themes they took away from the program

Research question one asked how the graduates felt about how the MPA degree program
helped prepare them for their careers and Table 4 highlighted the range of responses.
Graduate D credited his first job with strengthening his analytical skills, but like many of
the graduate responses to the survey, he was keeping his options open for the next job
opportunity and did not want to get pigeon-holed into a specific role. At his position at the time
of the study, he had been tasked with increased responsibilities and was asked to give
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 55
presentations to various stakeholders. “It makes me feel like I’m using the skills I was hoping to
develop. It sounds silly, but it really is the soft skills that I think are helpful, where you’re doing
anything more than just number crunching and using your analytical skills. You need critical
thinking and analytical skills to do any high-level job.” Schön (1987) stated that problems do
not present themselves in well-ordered structures, by focusing on knowledge and experience,
those professionals can work through the challenges.
Graduate B who graduated in 2013 was responsible for speaking to and recruiting
vendors to attend events and demonstrate their products. He had been learning techniques for
how to manage organizations and their different interests. Graduate B shared during the
interview that he had been figuring out “how to keep people on task with trying to figure out
what they want to do through the year. Because those types of meetings tend to go off the rail
very quickly.” When it came time to plan in the internal meetings, Graduate B had been
expanding the responsibilities of his job and had recently put together a project proposal to
present to the leadership in his organization. He used the lessons from the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA degree program to think through and work out the implementation and
marketing strategy.
“We put together a job board… they did not have one on their website before and it just
opened up this past week and it's getting a lot of traction so far and I’m particularly proud
of that idea because - this is totally going to sound like bragging but – I put together the
idea for it, and I put together a marketing strategy, and a way to implement it and I put it
together seemingly well enough that when I presented it … no one had any adjustments
to it.”
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 56
The proposal was strongly developed, and the leadership decided it was ready for the
public without needing any revisions. Graduate B obtained feedback at the front-end of the
project, having used a similar strategy in his class work (learning that not communicating with
classmates contributed to an unsatisfactory project outcome) and learning about organizational
culture and practices, and the views of his stakeholders. The direct strategy of applying skills
from the classroom into the workplace gave this graduate the feeling of success and
accomplishment.
Graduate D commented on his capstone project, “which is strategic planning, although
I’m not using it as much in the moment, but I think that’s one class that I really got a lot out of
and want to do more of.” He also stated his lifelong learning strategy; “I know what I need to
do, know that if there’s some research over there - grab it, if there’s more research over there -
grab it. It may look like Greek right now, but keep reading through it and eventually pieces will
come together and it will sort itself.” Graduate D learned in the MPA program through
reflection, how to problem solve through challenges. He was able to use the strategies of the
MPA degree to move forward and overcome obstacles, as Schön and Rein (1994) shared, one
can use reflection to better understand situation and connect concepts into actionable steps to
learn, grown and become a more effective leader.
Graduate E was in a challenging situation as she reported to two different supervisors.
“My direct boss is in Los Angeles … but I work with the [local department director] and my
direct boss to make decisions for my position which is a unique situation and I think that the
MPA has provided me with skills that help me handle that type of interaction.” She reported
using strategic planning concepts to manage this reporting situation:
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 57
“I have to go through that process to make sure that I am understanding what they are
saying. That I know what I’m getting out of the exchange and it’s different because
you’re passing it by two different people who sometimes have very different perspectives
so it’s really important to have that time to think about the things outside of the moment,
and think back on decisions that were made before so you know the precedent and you
can kind of avoid further confusion.”
This quote demonstrated how Graduate E directly applied the techniques from class to
apply to her unique working situation.
USC Price in Sacramento MPA graduates claim that the most useful information to their
professional development was the skills and knowledge in public administration, management
and policy. As the findings demonstrate with the professional mobility, the respondents have
developed confidence in their abilities to be effective manager, leaders, and reflective
practitioners.
Analysis of Research Question Two
The second research question asked how the USC Price Sacramento MPA alumni
described their use of reflective practice in the workplace. Analysis across the series of
questions in the electronic web-based survey and interviews found the students demonstrated use
and reliance on the skill of reflection as a strategy method for professional development.
Reflection as a Tactic.
All the respondents stated that they use reflective practice in their professional work, 90%
(n=27) “frequently” and 10% (n=3) “sometimes.” Ninety-three percent (n=28) reported that they
remembered using reflective practice while they were students, with only two saying that they
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 58
did not remember using reflective practices while they were students. This may be attributed to
the inconsistent use of terminology across the USC Price in Sacramento MPA course curricula.
Larrivee (2008) wrote about different levels of reflective practice, which were used in the
survey questionnaire to gauge where the respondents self-identified where they most frequently
use reflection:
 Pre-reflection: Interpreting situations without thoughtful association to contexts.
 Surface reflection: Examining methods with a focus on how to best achieve objectives.
 Critical reflection: Engaging in ongoing reflection and critical inquiry.
When asked what level of reflection the graduates typically engage, the respondents chose from
the above three options, which included the same descriptors. Of the 30 respondents, most
(n=18) shared that they engage in critical reflection, 33% (n=11) stated they engage in surface
reflection, and one claimed to use pre-reflection.

“I believe I am better able to think systematically, and I have a foundation
of organization knowledge to apply to new situations.”

Cohort 2014
“Reflection, variety of leadership skills and understanding what type of
leader, employee and person I am and how to effectively interact with
others in all aspect of my life (personal and professional).

Cohort 2016
“The MPA program gave me the opportunity to sharpen some of the skills
that I gained in the work place (qualitative research, reflection, formalized
processes for data inquiry and analysis); these are the skills that I continue
to use when collaborating with colleagues and meeting with community
stakeholders.”

Cohort 2016
Table 5. Selection of responses regarding use of reflection post-graduation

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 59
The following question was used to clarify how reflective practice was used in the
workplace: “when using reflective practice to make decisions regarding your work, where have
you found it functions best?” The results were distributed across all possible responses with
33.3% (n=10) graduates reporting “at the end,” 30% (n=9) reporting “at the beginning of the
process,” 20% (n=6) reporting “in the moment,” and 16.7% (n=5) stating “other” or a
combination of all three stages.
“At the beginning of the process” refers to the time when one is trying to assess options
before a challenge or problem is addressed. It correlates to how Dewey (1938) first wrote about
reflective practice, by taking a moment to pause and consider possible actions and critically
evaluating a situation. It is a way of demonstrating learning from previous experiences. “At the
end” is reflection-on-action, reflecting and analyzing a situation after it has occurred (Schön,
1983). This was demonstrated in the findings by respondents referring to meetings or debriefs to
look back and evaluate a situation or experience and learn from what happened. Questions such
as what worked, what did not work, what could be improved help prompt reflective thinking on a
past event. “In the moment” reflection is reflection-in-action. Schön (1983) described this as
thinking on one’s feet. This was demonstrated by the following: when confronted with a new
problem, working to consider what occurred in the past and applying critical thinking to the
situation and gaining new knowledge.
The subject matter in the strategic planning courses had the most applicable practices for
Graduate B’s work, particularly the assessment post project, of going back and evaluating the
best practices and lessons learned, were directly applicable to the task required at work. He
reported that he first had to learn from observations, when tasked with coordinating
conferences. On one of the first projects that he worked on, there was an issue with attendance.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 60
“The general vibe of the event was that the quality was strong and the event itself was
profitable but it was very poorly attended. Because of things that I had taken away from
the class, I was able to look at it from a more analytical viewpoint, and try and figure out
why I think that people didn’t go, and we were able to narrow it down for a few
reasons. One, it was a little bit more expensive than past years. Two, it was in Napa,
which is very pretty place it’s difficult to get to, it’s an hour away from any of the closest
airports so it was difficult for people in California to get to, it’s difficult for vendors
coming from across the country to get to. So we were able to identity what did and didn’t
work, and we can’t really account for things like that, for things like the Brexit vote, but
we decided that for this year, we would go to Coronado Island, right by San Diego, close
to the airport.”
In reflecting on this assessment, he said that in contrast, “cause as I’m getting older, I realize a
lot of people just look at something and go “X didn’t work so we’ll try Y instead’ without trying
to figure out why X didn’t work and not checking to see why Y might not be a better idea, they
just go for a different strategy.” The literature shows that practicing public administrators often
face situations and use reflection to think back on past experiences and create new opportunities
(Schön, 1983; Weschler, 1997). Eisenhardt (1989) wrote that decision makers that keep pace
with change are linked to strong performance. By practicing reflection, the graduates learn how
to become better decision makers by learning from past to apply to new challenges.
Other responses to the question of when reflection was used included: “I would say it
varies by situation- I have used reflection at the beginning, the end, and in the moment”; “All
three! They each serve a different, but beneficial purpose”; and “Throughout the process as more
information becomes available.” One interpretation of these “other” responses was that these
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 61
respondents were using reflection to connect concepts into actionable steps to learn, grow, and
become more effective leaders in their organizations.
The previous two themes of professional mobility and coursework impact, emerge from
the alumni reflections on their experience. A majority of the respondents affirmed that they
would, or already have, actively let others know about the USC Price in Sacramento MPA
degree program and recommend they look to pursue an MPA degree. Many respondents stated
that if others were interested in pursuing a career in public service, then this was a useful and
rigorous program.
Graduate A stated that the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree gave her “confidence,
knowing that when you see people day in and day out and they see how you act, that it gives you
license to take a calculated risk in dealing with a problematic person.” In a relatively new
position, Graduate A was learning about the organizational culture of the company. There was a
colleague that had a reputation for getting in the way of progress on various projects. The
lessons from class on how to manage people and learn to maneuver one’s position within an
organization helped Graduate A to be successful in her job despite the problematic colleague.
She reported that she used reflection to slow down and “to shake off your emotions so that you
can make a rational, logical decision… it’s taking time.” Reflection helped guide her work when
her direct supervisor was located at a separate facility and had multiple other roles and
responsibilities.
Graduate E’s primary role was as a recruiter, she shared that the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA degree program gave her an understanding of how the various government
agencies functioned, how private firms and non-profit organizations worked together, and their
general roles and purposes. She was able to expand on her understanding of how government
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 62
works at all levels and found that it “has been really helpful in my recruitment and understanding
of different policies” when recruiting students who work in policy. Graduate E found she was
able to better tailor her message to prospective students because of this understanding. “I work
with students and those relationships are primarily relationship based. It’s about quickly making
judgments about a person, not in a negative sense, but identifying who they are, where they are
coming from, what things make them tick, and then enhancing and highlighting those when I’m
pitching the program.”
When approaching the value of leadership lessons instilled from the USC Price in
Sacramento MPA degree program, Graduate A shared that it gave her “maturity” and “self-
awareness” to be able to reflect more deeply before taking action, especially when working
within the constraints of multiple stakeholder interests and establishing her own reputation each
time she relocated to a new organization. Graduate A wanted to make sure that others could rely
on her and see her as capable in moving projects forward. The leadership lessons that she used
in the workplace include “tak[ing] a leap of faith” and trusting in her past experiences to be able
to trust her instincts when making critical decisions.
She recalled in a leadership class, there was an assignment where the students had to
reflect and “think about three to five different scenarios and think about the different leadership
scenarios, methods that we were learning in class and kind of tease out these kinds of
experiences. We had to provide solutions and how we would have reacted in those situations.”
Specifically “learning about what didn’t work and what we could do better and not just
change what we’re doing but after it in a way that will work.” Graduate B was sharing how he
was utilizing reflective practice within the framework of system improvement at his
workplace. He recalls having an unsatisfactory professor for his organization behavior course,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 63
and wondered if he could have gained a better understanding of the course content if he had a
different instructor. Graduate B stated, “it’s still surprising to me how, five or six people who
generally have similar personalities can see things in very different ways. I don’t think it’s led to
any problems over the years, but I just feel like if I had a deeper base on what that class probably
would have instilled, then I would have a deeper understanding of how to apply it to the work
right now I guess.” As Wills and Clerkin (2009) wrote, without the reflection process, students
would “not know how to improve their future transactions or why they did or did not succeed”
(p. 255). The respondent demonstrated the importance that learning on a surface level was
helpful in observing challenges, but with further study and practice, would have a better
understanding for how to deal with the problem.
In spite of that, Graduate B would recommend the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
program to others. He said that it taught him how to be a better professional overall and that it
could help others from picking up bad habits. “If you are a in a well-running association you’ll
be fine, but if you get into the wrong one and learn the wrong strategies, you’re going to be
hosed.”
At a new organization and feeling overwhelmed with all of the information, Graduate D
shared that the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program helped him “to get over the
mental block… I have to focus myself and take each little, think one step at time… being able to
say ‘okay, I got this’ being able to understand policy I can read through. I know what I need to
do.” When tasked with a new assignment, Graduate D's supervisor told him to seek guidance
from a colleague with more experience. He followed this advice, but his colleagues had
differing opinions on how to move forward, “so I’m managing people and managing the
process. Even though I don’t know what the subject is, learning where your resources are and
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 64
what I call ‘levers to pull’ to try to actually try to figure something out. I think every day I get a
question that I don’t understand but I know where I can go for research.” Graduate D has the
confidence to speak up at his office and said that “I am able to articulate what I want… I’ve
gotten more responses from applications than I had before the program.”
Graduate E found the exercises provided a foundation for her second job as a teacher for
an introductory communications course. The students were required to give a few presentations
throughout the semester. Graduate E implemented a subsequent assignment that had the students
reflect on their presentations. After they spoke, they would have to discuss how they felt while
presenting and why. It helped the students discover why they were anxious, to be more aware of
their actions while they were presenting. Graduate E learned the value of structuring time to
think about one’s actions in order to learned and make adjustments for the future. She took time
to learn from past experience, make adjustments to create more effective strategies. “I was put in
a position to facilitate quite a few conversations between both educators and employers and that
was quite a challenge. I would attribute being able to speak diplomatically and be the liaison and
facilitate an effective conversation from some of the experiences and tools that we learned
through the courses that I took [at USC].”
Graduate E also commented on aspects of program evaluation as a reflective practice:
“I operate and am constantly thinking about what to do next, and who to talk to, where to
talk to, where do I need to go, what checklist I need to check, and so reflection for me is
the most calming and meaningful type of thinking I can do and you don’t often get time
to do it. Because it’s more than just reviewing your day. It’s becoming more aware of
what you really gained from an experience or what you got out of your day.”
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 65
Ninety-three percent (n=28) of the respondents claim that they have influence within their
organizations to make decisions or that their actions have an impact on their organization,
constituents, and/ or stakeholders in some way. Students who pursue an MPA are often focused
on public service and how they can make communities better. USC Price students are already
having opportunities to make decisions in their organizations and want to gain more skill and
knowledge on how to deal with difficulty situations, peoples, and other challenging dynamics.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 66
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION
This study assesses the usefulness of the Master of Public Administration (hereafter
MPA) curriculum on reflective practice for graduates of the USC Price School in Sacramento
campus MPA degree program. The importance of reflective practice in the professional setting
was conceptualized in this study following Donald Schön (1983, 1987), John Dewey (1938), and
John Mezirow (1998). A review of the literature outlines the value of reflective practice for
professionals and their development as leaders (Dewey, 1938; Schön, 1983; Mezirow, 1998) as
well as for MPA programs across the United States tout their ability to create effective leaders.
The accrediting body for MPA degree program, the Network of Schools of Public Policy Affairs
and Administration (NASPAA), has included reflective practice as an integral part of the
learning outcomes for students in accredited MPA programs. As Schön (1983) notes, when
reflective practice is taught well, the activity becomes implicit, so the research challenge is how
to find and then unpack that implicit knowledge.
This study researches the role of reflective practice in professional decision-making for
MPA degree graduates from the USC Price in Sacramento. The focus for this study were the
following two questions: does the MPA degree teach reflective practice?; and do alumni practice
reflective practice? The study design assesses the application of the MPA in Sacramento in
professional setting surveying how MPA graduates were using reflective practice and its role in
their decision-making processes. The study was designed to clarify the strengths and weaknesses
of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program specifically in relation to reflective
practice.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 67
At the time that this study was conducted, there had been no post graduate surveys
conducted with the graduates of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA program. There are two
reasons that this study was timely and relevant: (1) USC Price in Sacramento is facing a
changing labor market and (2) there is increased choice in the region with more MPA degrees
offered in the classroom by local universities and more online programs offered nationally by a
wide range of universities. This study addresses a gap in the available information on MPA
graduates applying classroom lessons after completing the degree program.
The study design consisted of two elements: an online survey of graduates from 2012-2016, and
in-depth, follow-up interviews with five individuals, with one individual purposively drawn from
each cohort. The survey was restricted to the last five years of graduates in order to maintain
consistency with similarity to program leadership and curriculum trends. As a retrospective
study design, this study relied on the participants to remember and to be able to articulate their
changes in practice they experienced entering the MPA degree program and after completion.
Interviews comprised the second element in the study design. More generally, qualitative
inquiry, which “focuses on meaning in context, requires a data collection instrument that is
sensitive to underlying significance when gathering and interpreting data” (Merriam, 2009, p.
19). Care was taken to use terminology that could bridge the five cohorts, with similar meaning
to different graduates in differing year in order to collect meaningful data to be analyzed.
Implications
One implication of the research is that MPA graduates from the program work full-time,
with the survey finding that 29 out of 30 participants were employed either full or part-time
while enrolled in the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree program. The full-time
employment is significant because while simultaneously attending school was how the school
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 68
was developed and designed to be an impactful model, and it is working. By applying the
lessons in the classroom to the workplace and the experiences from the workplace to the theories
in class strengthen the experiences for the students. And it offers a context of a professional
setting for reflections in that the graduates have an understanding of reflective practice in order
to problem solve challenges in their organizations. As the literature states, problems do not
appear in the real world as a “well-formed structure” (Schön, 1987, p. 4) and the graduates are
utilizing reflective practice in order to work out the processes they need to tackle these
complicated challenges. Without reflection, the graduates would not know how to improve for
the future when the next problem arises (Wills & Clerkin, 2009).
The implications of the responses as positive and favorable on the perception of
usefulness of the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree: (1) better management and leadership
skills, (2) better/higher paying job, and (3) networking are that graduate focus on the tangible in
contrast to abstract benefits of their MPA degree. These are all exterior facing, interpersonal
skills or outcomes suggesting the difficulty of unpacking an interior facing skill, intrapersonal,
which is inherent in reflective practice. The question then becomes does reflective practice link
to these exterior, interpersonal skills. The implications of the responses to the lessons learned
applied in the workplace question, continue with interpersonal skills. The most frequent
response given was human and organizational behavior. The next two most frequently reported
skills that the respondents reported learning in the USC Price in Sacramento MPA degree
program were leadership and collaboration with colleagues.
The implications of the responses on reflective practice suggest the pervasiveness in
students’ degree work with 28 of 30 respondents reporting that they remembered using reflective
practices while they were students, with only two saying that they did not remember using
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 69
reflective practices while they were students. The implications of the distribution of the results
are important to note as 100% of the graduates reported that they use reflection in their
professional setting. They shared that they are able to “think systematically,” “make decisions in
a more focused and ethical manner,” and “effectively interact with others.” As the research of
Hammer and Stanton (1997) and Larrivee (2008) verify, reflective practice ranges from
analyzing a single aspect of a lesson to considering the ethical, social and political aspects of
practice. The results were distributed across all possible responses with ten graduates reporting
“at the end,” nine reporting “at the beginning of the process,” six reporting “in the moment,” and
five stating “other” or a combination of all three stages. There were concerns raised by
respondents, regarding the return on investment and the cost of the degree.
Following the completion of the online survey, interviews were conducted over the span
of a few weeks in the spring of 2017. The interviews functioned as essentially case studies. This
qualitative study method allowed for more context and nuanced information than from the
survey answers alone (Merriam, 2009). The implications of the five interviews is that the
graduates are using the degree program and the lessons taught in the classroom for career
mobility. The graduates shared in their remarks that they use reflective practice as a technique to
demonstrate proficiency in their roles. Another implication of the research was finding a number
of respondents reporting on leadership and strategy as skills. These might be connected to
reflective practice in a way not fully captured in the research design.
From these implications, there are a few recommendations for the future research on this
subject matter. One option is to recommend to NASPAA, the accrediting agency for schools of
public administration, to develop a sample of MPA degree programs to survey alumni with these
questions on reflective practice. NASPAA could consider reflective practice as part of the
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 70
competencies for programs to consider incorporating into their curricula. For the USC MPA
program, a similar survey could be given to the graduates of the MPA at the Los Angeles campus
or the online modality.
Another recommendation would be to develop a survey of MPA directors to request their
curricular design and learn how many programs explicitly teach reflective practice. Interview a
set of non-MPA graduates working in California state government to consider a comparative
study between the populations. The final recommendation would be to develop a research
instrument to survey the direct reports of future respondents who indicate a use of reflective
practice to consider how and if this impacts those reporting to be a self-described reflective
practitioner.
Future Research
These results suggest that reflective practice is used by graduates in their efforts to
problem solve and to move upward in their careers. Future research could apply the study design
to other programs, to explore potential ways to deepen understanding of Schön’s questions. The
following are possible study designs for confirming and expanding on the results reported in this
study. Essentially, the study design offers the potential to develop comparative analysis across
locations, levels of government, career professions, and internationally.
● Method follow-up. Using the same methods as this study, electronic survey and selected
interviews, applied to a larger respondent pool across more cohorts.
● Expanded survey collection and methodology. Allow comparisons across the different
locations where the MPA degree is taught (Los Angeles, Sacramento, online) and see if
there are changes across time in different cohorts in these different degree modalities.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 71
● Use these results as a baseline study to understand what changes, if any, the students go
through during the degree program, to ascertain how students in the MPA program learn
and retain reflective practice.
● Compare different practices across MPA graduates in levels of governments, local,
county, special districts, state and federal agencies and across different types of public
agencies.
This study and further research offer great potential for deepening understanding of how
public-sector professionals with MPA degrees engage in reflective practice.
Limitations of Survey
There are limitations to the findings of this study. The highest response rates to the
online survey were the cohorts from 2012 and 2016. There may have been an implicit or social-
desirability bias towards the researcher, as I was classmates with the cohort of 2012. It was also
an example of convenience sampling; the survey was not anonymous in the respect that all of the
research subjects knew the researcher of the study. All conclusions of the findings are
suggestive and not definitive. The subjects were queued into thinking about reflective practice in
the context of their time in the MPA program, but the term may have slightly varied meanings to
different people.
There may be a selection bias issue, with those respondents who answered the survey
potentially more likely to be reflective than those who did not reply to the survey invitation. In
effect, that reflective practitioners are more likely to respond to a survey that asks them to reflect
than those who are not as engaged in reflective practices and therefore less likely to respond to
an instrument calling for their reflections. There are limits to cross sectional data responses in
one point of time, not capturing any changes in the degree program material or delivery, as well
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 72
as potential differences in recruitment of students across different years. Finally, as this is only
one degree program, at one location, there are significant limits on the generalizability across
even the same degree program at USC delivered in Los Angeles, as well as with the other MPA
degree programs nationally.
Concluding Thoughts
As an MPA graduate from the USC Price School, this study has a personal connection to
me. There are anecdotal experiences about the student and alumni experience but surveys on
alumni or students have not been conducted to find out what is going on from the perspective of
the student. What the research findings concluded, mostly aligned with what I thought would be
the benefits and drawbacks to the master’s degree.
In completing the research, I was surprised by the extent to which the graduates used the
degree program and reflective practice to gain a new job or promotion. Previously I had thought
the degree in and of itself was what propelled the graduates forward in their careers, along with
the alumni network. I learned that there are a handful of courses from the degree program that
resonated with the graduates due to their ability to demonstrate certain skills and techniques. I
learned that there are many students who change positions multiple times after completing the
MPA degree, but that the career trajectories of the graduates is going exactly where they want to
go. There were no responses that indicated they were unhappy with the work they were able to
position themselves into.
This research provides the opportunity to apply the research design to other MPA
programs nationally, as well as internationally for comparative and cross-cultural comparisons.
As researchers like Janousek (2017) theorize, “university-based MPA programs may offer
substantive educational and assistive contributions to the development, enhancement, and
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 73
utilization of professional public administration within their geographic regions,” (p. 606). With
my fluency in Japanese language, and familiarity with the culture, I am looking to adapt this to a
study design of the MPA equivalent type of program at a university in Japan and compare the
results internationally.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 74
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REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 79
Appendix A
Consent Form

Consent for Participation in Interview Research

I volunteer to participate in a research project conducted by Juliet Lee from the University of
Southern California. I understand that the project is designed to gather information about reflective
practice and the Master of Public Administration degree. I will be one of a few people being
interviewed for this research.

1. My participation in this project is voluntary. I understand that I will not be paid for my
participation. I may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty. If I decline
to participate or withdraw from the study, no one on my campus will be told.

2. I understand that most interviewees will find the discussion interesting and thought-provoking.
If, however, I feel uncomfortable in any way during the interview session, I have the right to
decline to answer any question or to end the interview.

3. Participation involves being interviewed by a researcher from the University of Southern
California. The interview will last approximately 30-45 minutes. Notes will be written during the
interview. An audio tape of the interview and subsequent transcript will be made. If I don't want
to be taped, I will not be able to participate in the study.

4. I understand that the researcher will not identify me by name in any reports using information
obtained from this interview, and that my confidentiality as a participant in this study will remain
secure. Subsequent uses of records and data will be subject to standard data use policies which
protect the anonymity of individuals and institutions.

5. Faculty and administrators from my campus will neither be present at the interview nor have
access to raw notes or transcripts. This precaution will prevent my individual comments from
having any negative repercussions.

6. I understand that this research study has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) for Studies Involving Human Subjects: Behavioral Sciences Committee at the
Century University. For research problems or questions regarding subjects, the Institutional
Review Board may be contacted through [information of the contact person at IRB office of
University of Southern California].

7. I have read and understand the explanation provided to me. I have had all my questions answered
to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.

8. I have been given a copy of this consent form.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 80
____________________________ ________________________
Signature Date
____________________________ ________________________
Printed Name Signature of the Investigator

For further information, please contact:
Juliet Lee at juliet.lee@usc.edu or (916) 637-8972

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 81
Appendix B
Email Request to Graduates

Date: February 9, 2017
Subject: Assistance with Dissertation

Dear [Name],

I am currently a doctoral student in the Rossier School of Education at USC and am conducting a
research study as part of the dissertation process under the instruction of Dr. Paula Carbone.

As a graduate from the Sacramento MPA program, I would like to request your participation in
one online survey taking up to 15 minutes.

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Your identity will remain confidential at all
times. Your relationship with USC will not be affected whether or not you participate in this
study.

If you have questions, please contact me via email or phone: juliet.lee@usc.edu or (916) 637-
8972.

Thank you for your consideration.

Juliet Lee
University of Southern California

You may access the survey at the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/vkHfbwYrOxEfjdih1

If you have a problem accessing the survey (created on Google Forms), I will send the questions
in a PDF form.

Date of preparation: February 2017

UPIRB #: UP-17-00066

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 82
Date: February 23, 2017
Subject: RE: Assistance with Dissertation

Dear [Name],

I would like to thank everyone who has responded to my research study! The results have been
encouraging but I am still hoping to get a few more responses. If you have not had a chance to
complete the questionnaire, the survey will be open until the end of next week. It should take no
longer than 15 minutes to complete: https://goo.gl/forms/vkHfbwYrOxEfjdih1

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Your identity will remain confidential at all
times. Your relationship with USC will not be affected whether or not you participate in this
study.

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at juliet.lee@usc.edu or (916) 637-8972.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best,

Juliet Lee
University of Southern California
(916) 637-8972
juliet.lee@usc.edu

You may access the survey at the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/vkHfbwYrOxEfjdih1

If you have a problem accessing the survey (created on Google Forms), I will send the questions
in a PDF form.

Date of preparation: February 2017

UPIRB #: UP-17-00066

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 83
Appendix C
Survey Instrument

Rossier School of Education, 3470 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089

INFORMATION SHEET

STUDY TITLE: REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MASTER OF PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION DEGREE

You are invited to participate in a research study. Research studies include only people who
voluntarily choose to take part. This document explains information about this study. You
should ask questions about anything that is unclear to you.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research study aims to understand how the Master of Public Administration degree prepares
its graduates to be effective decision makers through reflective practice.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT

If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete an online survey which is
anticipated to take about 10 minutes. Please complete all questions to the best of your ability, all
responses will remain confidential. The last question of the survey will ask you are willing to
participate in a follow-up interview that will ask you to expand on your experience with
reflective practice. The interview will ask about your personal experiences with reflective
practice and how you are utilizing the skills in your work. The interview will be recorded with
your permission, for accuracy of data collected and will last approximately 30 to 45 minutes.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential.
Your responses will be coded with a false name (pseudonym) and maintained separately. The
audio files will be destroyed once they have been transcribed. The data will be stored on a
password protected computer in the researcher’s office for three years after the study has been
completed and then destroyed. When the results of the research are published or discussed in
conferences, no identifiable information will be used.

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 84
INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Principle investigator/ researcher, Juliet Lee at (916) 637-8972 or juliet.lee@usc.edu

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los
Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213)821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu

What year did you graduate from the Sacramento campus? *
□2012
□2013
□2014
□2015
□2016

How long did it take you to complete the MPA degree?
□Less than 2 years
□2 years
□More than 2 years

Did you specialize in any focus area?
□Healthcare
□Leadership
□Non-Profit
□Public Policy
□None
□Other :
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 85

Were you employed while earning your degree?
□Yes, full-time
□Yes, part-time
□No

If you answered "yes" to Q. 4, what sector were you employed in while
earning your MPA?
□Public - local
□Public - state
□Public - federal
□Private
□Non-profit
□Other :

How long have you been in your current position?
Less than 1 year
□1 - 5 years
□6 - 10 years
□Over 10 years
□Other :

Since completing your MPA degree, have you changed jobs?
□Yes
□No
□Other :
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 86

How many different positions have you held since starting the MPA
degree?
□Choose

Thinking back to when you were enrolled in the MPA program, do you
recall assignments or exercises that required you to use reflection?
□Yes
□No
□Other :

Are you in a position where you make decisions that have an impact on
your organization/ constituents/ stakeholders?
□Yes
□No
□Other :

How often do you reflect on situations, individually or with colleagues
during work?
□Every day
□Occasionally: a few times a month
□Rarely: a few times a year
□Never

When using reflective practice to make decisions regarding your work,
where have you found it functions best?
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 87
□At the beginning of the process, when I am trying to assess options.
□At the end of the process, when I am trying to sort through the information
and analyze the process.
□In the moment, as situations arise.
□Other :

In which level of reflection do you typically engage?
□Pre-reflection: Interpreting situations without thoughtful association to other
contexts.
□Surface reflection: Examining methods with a focus on how to best achieve
objectives.
□Critical reflection: Engaging in ongoing reflection and critical inquiry.

What did you hope to get out for the MPA program?
□Your answer

What skills or lessons do you use from the MPA degree in your
workplace?
□Your answer

Overall, have you found the MPA degree to be beneficial to your
professional development?
□Your answer

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 88
Would you recommend others to pursue an MPA? Please explain.
□Your answer

Are you willing to be contacted for a follow-up interview related to this
study?
□Yes
□No

If you answered "Yes" above, please provide your contact information:
name, email, phone number.
□Your answer

SUBMIT
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REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 89
Appendix D
Interview Protocol

Time of Interview

Date

Place

Interviewer

Interviewee

Title/ Organization

Introduction
Thank you for agreeing to participate in my study. I am a doctoral student at the University of
Southern California working on my dissertation and studying the Master of Public
Administration degree and its applicability to the workplace through the framework of reflective
practice. As a graduate of the program, I would like to hear about your thoughts and experiences
during your time at USC and after. The interview should take about 30 to 40 minutes and will
not exceed an hour. Does that timing work for you?

I am strictly functioning as a researcher today. I am not evaluating or making judgements on
what you share with me. The answers from everyone that I interview, which will be three to four
subjects, will be combined in the final report. Nothing you say will ever be identified with you
personally.

As we go through the interview, if you have any questions about why I am asking something,
please feel free to ask. Or if there is anything you do not want to answer, just say so. The
purpose of this interview is to get your insights into the MPA degree and if you are using any of
the lessons or skills taught when you face work challenges.

I have brought a recorder with me today so that I can accurately capture what you share with me.
May I have your permission to record our conversation? If at any time during the interview you
wish to discontinue the use of the recorder or the interview itself, please let me know. At this
time, I would like to remind you of your written consent to participate in this study. I am the
responsible investigator. You and I have both signed and dated each copy, certifying that we
agree to continue this interview. You will receive one copy and I will keep the other separate
from your reported responses.

Your participation in this interview is completely voluntary. If at any time you need to stop or
take a break, just let me know. You may withdraw your participation at any time without
consequence. Do you have any questions before we begin? [Answer questions if needed]. With
your permission we will now begin the interview. [Turn on the recorder].
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND THE MPA DEGREE 90
Interview Questions

1. Tell me about yourself: when did you complete the MPA degree at USC, what was your
occupation at the time and what are you doing now?
2. What did you hope to get out of the MPA program? (promotion, change sectors, skills,
networking, other goal?)
3. To what extent do you feel the MPA prepared you for your current career?
a. What is your typical work day/ week like, who do you interact with -both within
your organization and external constituents?
4. What kind of challenges do face on a regular basis?
5. Could you describe a time where you felt successful after dealing with a challenge?
a. Would you attribute any of that success to what you learned in the MPA program?
6. How are you applying the lessons learned from the program to the workplace?
7. Have you been able to problem solve situations using those skills?
8. How do you define reflection?
9. Describe how you use reflection at your current work.
10. In your opinion, would you say that having an MPA degree has helping you at your
current job or on your career trajectory?
11. What do you think was missing from the MPA curriculum, were there any gaps in your
education that you wish were covered?
12. Do you think it’s necessary to have an MPA degree? Would you recommend the MPA to
others?
13. Is there anything that you would like to add that we did not cover?

Closing

Thank you for participating in this interview. Please be assured that I will hold all responses
confidential. Should I have any further questions regarding your interview responses or
experiences, may I contact you for a follow-up interview?

Alignment of Instrument and Protocol to Research Questions
Research Question Survey Questions Interview Questions
1. What are the perceptions of the
Sacramento Master of Public
Administration alumni regarding the
extent to which the degree program
prepared them for their career?
10, 14, 15, 16 2, 3, 10
2. In what ways do MPA alumni describe
their implementation of reflective
practice and their decision making
practices in the workplace?
9, 11, 12, 13 4, 5, 6, 9

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study surveyed five years of graduates from the USC Price School in Sacramento’s Master of Public Administration degree and asked how they used reflective practice in their professional lives. The research methods included an electronic survey sent to 82 graduates from 2012 through 2016 and follow-up interviews with five individuals, one from each graduating cohort. The themes that emerged from the survey and interview results centered around upward career mobility and professional development. The research found that reflection played a major role in the graduate’s perception on their ability to change their professional careers and how they were able to utilize the coursework outside of the classroom. The USC MPA program was designed for students to pursue the degree while working at the same time. This was found to be regular practice as 29 out of 30 survey respondents were working either part or full-time while simultaneously enrolled in the degree program.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Lee, Juliet Moeko (author)

Core Title Reflective practice and the Master of Public Administration degree

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 07/27/2018

Defense Date 06/22/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag graduate degree application,Master of Public Administration degree,MPA graduates,OAI-PMH Harvest,reflective practice

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Carbone, Paula (committee chair), Crawford, Jenifer (committee member), Denhardt, Janet (committee member)

Creator Email juliet.lee@usc.edu,moekolee@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-36496

Unique identifier UC11671549

Identifier etd-LeeJulietM-6530.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-36496 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-LeeJulietM-6530.pdf

Dmrecord 36496

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Lee, Juliet Moeko

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA