Minnie Abercrombie

Minnie Abercrombie (14 November 1909 – 25 November 1984), also known as M. L. J. Abercrombie, was a British zoologist, educationalist and psychologist. She was known for her work on invertebrates and her work in the publishing industry, conducted with her husband, Michael Abercrombie. She also contributed to the theory and practice of education through her teaching, research, lecturing and writing. In particular, she carried out pioneer psychological research into the use of groups in learning with medical, architectural and education students, and she shared with diverse audiences in many countries her extensive knowledge and expertise as a teacher who used the methods and principles of group analytic psychotherapy.

Early life and education Minnie Louie Johnson was born on 14 November 1909. She attended Waverley Road Secondary School in Birmingham, where she completed the higher school certificate in chemistry, zoology, botany, and history. Influenced by her biology teacher she stayed in education and went to university. She also collaborated with Michael Abercrombie and C. J. Hickman on the Penguin Dictionary of Biology.

She worked on the selection and pre-clinical training of medical students, based in the Anatomy Department. This prompted her interest in group discussion, perception and reasoning so students learned from their peers as well as teachers, a precursor to problem-based learning later adopted in medical education. She also spent 5 years working at Guy's Hospital on a project about cerebral palsy. Abercrombie then was appointed as Reader in Architectural Education at the Bartlett School in University College and able to take full control of her research and teaching.

After her formal retirement, she continued to work and research on small-group education, first with a grant-funded research project about medical education in the Radiology Department at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge where she was then living, followed by a project at the Cambridge Institute of Education with a group of primary school headteachers and Cambridge Group Work, a regional branch of the Institute of Group Analysis based in London. She was also involved with the University of the Third Age. She was among the founders of the Group Analytic Society and its president from 1980 - 1983. investigated and developed improved methods of small-group teaching in higher education. Examples were why medical students, who were able to solve problems when presented in a familiar format, were unable to do so when the same problems were presented in a slightly different way. She brought out that most people rarely reflect upon their initial judgements, which were embedded in their own personality. Abercrombie found that group discussion helped these students solve such problems and, in particular, improved the ability of the students to discriminate between facts and opinions, to resist false conclusions and to bring fresh strategies to their attempts to solve new problems without being adversely influenced by past failure. The ideas she put forward about the development of small group interactive learning pedagogies in the 1960s in the UK had an almost immediate impact on the primary and tertiary education. Her Anatomy of Judgement: an investigation into the process of perception and reasoning

The book The Anatomy of Judgement is an edited selection from her educational writings and is her best known book. It is essentially an analysis of the process of learning as a summation of judgements when information is presented, showing how emotion and preconceptions influence this judgement. The extracts are arranged in four parts. The first gives an overview of the development of her research and thinking from her early years as a zoology teacher to her growing involvement in group analysis and its application in education. The second part illustrates the way in which, throughout her work, three themes interact: the selective and projective nature of perception and reasoning; the difficulty that human beings experience in changing; the subtlety and complexity of communication. The third part focuses in greater detail upon group analysis, its relevance to and use in higher education.

Group learning She carried out pioneer research into the use of groups in learning with medical, architectural and education students, and she shared with diverse audiences in many countries her extensive knowledge and expertise as a teacher who used the methods and principles of group analytic psychotherapy. Abercrombie came to these views through her contact with the psychoanalyst and group analyst S. H. Foulkes and in 1952 she was a founder member of the Group Analytic Society, and president of the society in 1981. This society still awards a prize in her name, the Jane Abercrombie Prize, in recognition of the importance of her ideas.

Later life When her husband got a job at University of Cambridge, she moved with him to live in Cambridge but commuted to continue to work in London. They had one son, Nicholas. She died suddenly on 25 November 1984.

Selected publications

Johnson, ML and RJ Whitney (1939) Colorimetric method for estimation of dissolved oxygen in the field. J. Experimental Biology 16 (1) 56 - 59. Johnson, ML (1942) The respiratory function of the haemoglobin of the earthworm. J. Experimental Biology 18 (3) 266 - 277. Abercrombie, M. L. (1960) The Anatomy of Judgement: An Investigation into the Processes of Perception and Reasoning, London: Hutchinson. Reprinted 1989, Free Association Books. Abercrombie, M. L. (1970) Aims and Techniques of Group Teaching, Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE working party on teaching methods, Publication 2), University of Surrey, Guildford. Abercrombie, M. L. (1979). Uses and Abuses of Boundaries – Perception: The Structure of Space and the Group Process. Group Analysis, 12(1), 30. Abercrombie, M. L. J. (1981) Beyond d Hawkins|D. Hawkins and M.L.J. Abercrombie (1982) Roads to Radiology: An Imaging Guide to Medicine and Surgery. Berlin Heidelberg; Springer-Verlag. 146ppthe Unconscious: Group Analysis Applied (5th Foulkes Lecture). Group Analysis, 14(2), suppt.