Integrative Complexity (IC)

IC Trainings

A total of 40 IC trainings have been conducted in Pakistan (Punjab and KPK) which can be further divided into following:

  • Two trainings were conducted in Punjab and KPK (initially to hire course facilitators).

    20 trainings were conducted with school population including five schools from KPK and five schools from Punjab.

    5 trainings were conducted with teachers in Punjab and KPK.

  • 11 trainings were conducted with the university students in Punjab and KPK including universities in Lahore, Sialkot, Swat and Malakand.

    One IC training was carried out in a Madrassa in Lahore

    One IC training was conducted with youth virtually.

Number of IC projects with Funding:

In total, 37 trainings were conducted with funding from UNDP and USIP. Three trainings were conducted without any funding.

 IC trainings were conducted in nine institutes of Punjab including five schools, three universities, one mixed population (online/virtual training) and one Madrassa. The intervention and control groups of Punjab schools consisted of 15 participants, with 18 participants in some of the groups.

 Similarly, seven institutes of KPK including five schools and two universities were part of IC training. The intervention and control groups in schools mostly included 15 participants with fewer participants in one of the control groups.

Schools

In Punjab and KPK schools, eight IC sessions were utilized including same sessions with the content tailored according to the cultural context of each province.

Universities

In universities of Punjab and KPK, six IC sessions were conducted with ten groups and four sessions were conducted with one group. The content of the sessions was tailored according to the cultural values of each province.

Madrassahs

The training conducted in madrassahs of Lahore included 27 participants in intervention group and 21 participants in control group. Six IC sessions were conducted with the intervention group.

IC Themes

Themes depended on the needs of the population; however, the overall objective was to help develop and promote cognitive complexity through the development of critical thinking, empathy and social intelligence.


Pertinent themes were chosen for each of the objectives to be met. For example, for social intelligence and critical thinking, it was essential to be able to identify when one is being treated unfairly and how to express ones’ feelings in order to be heard and seek ways to a negotiate to move towards a win-win solution. It also aimed at allowing participants to understand the role of values through how authority figures sometimes command compliance, and whether there are ways to find a middle ground between what others want them to do and what they themselves want to do.



Ingroup and Outgroup dynamics tend to be a common element for most of the sessions, which allow participants to be able to become more aware of the social processes that lead one to develop certain values, likes and dislikes, and a tendency to react in positive ways to those who belong to their own group, and in negative ways to those who belong to the out group (or the Other Group). Understanding how conflict develops and reaches levels of violence is experienced through some of the later sessions (after basic understanding of social dynamics and critical thinking has been developed), and how violence leads to destruction, where both groups tend to suffer. This allows them to develop empathy for the outgroup, while also taking responsibility for their (ingroup) actions. This reflection comes to life through specific activities aimed at providing both sides of the story and integrating it into a bigger picture focused on conflict-resolution.

Towards the end of the workshop, once the above stated understanding has been achieved, sessions are aimed at seeing through manipulation of others (through words, pictures and actions) in order to be more aware of processes of persuasion and to be able to counter them in situations where they may not serve well to the individual (such as extremist thinking, which may lead to violence).

Each session focuses on some values that may be in tension, with later sessions having multiple values competing with each other (own group vs. humanity at large; doing the right thing vs. doing what others want you to do; thinking of personal gains vs. collective gains), and each participant must decide for themselves where they stand on a particular topic. It is important to state here that, with the underlying aim to move away from black-and-white (all-or-nothing) thinking, participants are encouraged to think along a spectrum of greys.






The final session of the intervention focuses on the participants to themselves reflect on each of the sessions, describing the values they consider important for themselves, and what they have learned from each of the sessions. This allows them to document the process through which they have changed in their own thinking and how they have integrated the learnings for themselves.

Sessions

Although six to nine sessions are utilised for each of the intervention workshops, the following sessions have been developed over the last five years, and adapted to the needs and contexts of a given population:

1)    It’s Not Fair

2)    Don’t ask Questions

3)    Who is who in your world

4)    Science and Traditional Beliefs

5)    Politics and Democracy

6)    Slavery and Freedom

7)    King and I

8)    Ingroup Outgroup

9)    Peace and Conflict

10) Balance Report

11) Tricks with words

12) Timeline of Change

Our Results

It is evident from the graph above that highest scores were obtained by boys of Punjab in Post PCTS, followed by higher scores obtained by KPK girls and secondary school boys in Swat. Overall, gains in IC are prominent in all three groups with highest gains in boys from Punjab schools.

As shown in the graph above, University 1 (KPK) students obtained highest post mean score as compared to all the other groups followed by University 1 and 2 (Punjab) students. Overall, mean scores of all the intervention groups from Swat region (teachers, university students and secondary school students) remained low as compared to the Punjab.

The graph shows overall IC gains by the participants in Punjab and KPK provinces. It is evident that there are significant gains in scores by the participants in both provinces with higher scores obtained by participants in Punjab region.

Conclusion

Despite participants’ low baseline reasoning abilities in comparison with other countries, the MTYT course was effective in achieving increases in cognitive complexity measured by IC in both KPK and Punjab regions, for both male and female students, as well as for teachers, even in pandemic conditions. Gain in IC regarding the Outgroup IC was stronger than for the Ingroup, which affected the overall 20 IC gain, but even so, the expected change to inter-group conflict dynamics has occurred.

Schools:

The rollout in schools helped to explore how deeply rote memorization had adversely affected the students’ skills of learning. Initially, the students who appeared to be reserve and doubted their performance were able to communicate their viewpoint by the end of the training sessions in a confident manner. Many of the students who were not good in academics were able to understand the themes of sessions and come up with effective solutions of the problems presented in each session. Students who did not like to participate came up with unique and high integrative complexity solutions to the problems presented in the sessions as the workshops proceeded. Moreover, the importance of expressing emotions was of great help for many students who shared how this enabled them to resolve various issues in their personal lives. These workshops helped us to witness how the students actually started to implement the learnings of sessions to facilitate their personal growth and maintain relationships with people around them in social and personal lives.

Madrassas:

            Rollout in Madrassa was a different experience where the participants were hesitant to participate in various activities. As the sessions proceeded, an observable change in the way of their expression towards activities and roleplays was seen. The post training oral and written presentations showed noticeable changes in the views about outgroups. Increased tolerance of ambiguity and higher levels of critical thinking were evident.

Overall, IC training was an extraordinary experience which facilitated our personal growth; we were able to see the different dimensions of a problem, accept that people have different perspectives, and it is integral to respect each other’s’ values. It provided a sense of accomplishment to see the students evolve in their lives, find solutions to different problems, enhance critical thinking and increase meta-awareness. The oral and written presentations enlightened us with the different ways each student implemented or planned to implement the learnings of the IC training in their lives.