Post on 27-Dec-2015
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 2
Do any of these sound familiar?
“So…which is the right answer?”
“What exactly do you want from us?”
“Well, if there is no right answer, then my opinion is just as valid as yours.”
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 3
If so, it’s not surprising…
And it’s not necessarily because the students have been given wrong answers…
Or, because you’ve been confusing or unclear…
Rather…your students’ cognitive development may not have reached a level appropriate to what you are expecting from them
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 4
Cognitive Development
What is Cognitive Development?
Why is it important to understand?
Perry’s model of Cognitive Development
Other models
References
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 5
What is Cognitive Development?
Cognitive development is a process through which people develop more sophisticated methods of understanding or perceiving information, opinions, theories, or facts.
In a sense…it describes the intellectual transition a person makes from being able to deal with a black and white world, to one with many shades of gray.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 6
Why is it important to understand?
Provides insight into student perspectives
Helps instructors appreciate how students understand or perceive information
Allows instructors to appropriately tailor information or questions
Current level
Beyond
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 7
Why is it important to understand?
Concepts appropriately beyond the current cognitive level result in:
disequilibrium
followed by
accomodation
Going too far can cause frustration. If too great, the student may leave.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 8
Perry’s Model
Perry’s model is concerned with:
How students move from a dualistic (black and white) view of the universe to a more relativistic (shades of gray) view
How students develop commitments within the relativistic world
Perry’s model includes four separate stages which are broken down into nine individual positions
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 9
Perry’s Model: The Positions
Stage 1: Dualism
Position 1 – Basic Duality
Position 2 – Dualism: Multiplicity Prelegitimate
Stage 2: Multiplicity
Position 3 – Early Multiplicity
Position 4 – Complex Dualism and Advanced Multiplicity
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 10
Perry’s Model: The Positions
Stage 3: Relativism
Position 5 – Relativism
Position 6 – Relativism: Commitment Foreseen
Stage 4: Commitment
Positions 7, 8 and 9 – Levels of Commitment
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 11
Stage 1 – Dualism
Students learn how to learn
There are right answers and wrong answers.
Learning is information exchange.
Knowledge is quantitative and the right answers are dispensed by authorities.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 12
Position 1: Basic Duality
World view is dualistic – right versus wrong
Authorities know all of the answers
Men identify with authority. Women do not.
Instructor should teach correct answers. Failure to do so indicates the instructor is bad.
Conflicts with multiplicity result in accommodation by modifying position 1 and moving to position 2.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 13
Position 2: Multiplicity Prelegitimate
Multiplicity exists, but basic dualistic view maintained
There is a right and wrong.
Multiple views are either wrong or “the authority is playing games to make us figure out the right answer”
Since authorities can be wrong, the absolute answers are independent of authority, and consequently some authorities are smarter than others.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 14
Position 2: Multiplicity Prelegitimate
Engineering students in this position can solve problems
Closed-end
Single correct answer
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 15
Stage 2 – Multiplicity
Students learn to think independently and improve their ability to think analytically.
There are conflicting answers, so one must trust their inner voice, not authority.
A continuum exists such that diverse views can be accepted when the answer is unknown.
All opinions are valid.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 16
Position 3: Early Multiplicity
Multiplicity unavoidable – even in hard sciences/engineering
Still one right answer, but it may be unknown by authority
Gap widens between authority and the one truth
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 17
Position 3: Early Multiplicity
Realization begins that knowledge in some areas is “fuzzy”
Conflict arises – how can instructor evaluate student’s work if the answer is not yet known?
“What do they want?”
In engineering few opportunities exist, outside of design classes, to move to positions 3 or 4
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 18
Position 4: Complex Dualism and Advanced Multiplicity
Tries to retain dualistic view, but understands that variety of opinion legitimately exists
Conforms to “what authority wants” by learning independent intellectual thought
Learns that independent-like thought will earn good grades
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 19
Position 4: Complex Dualism and Advanced Multiplicity
May oppose authority’s wants in areas where multiplicity is important
Engineer in position 4 can generate clever, creative solutions to problems.
May lack vision and ability to prioritize.
Many engineers with advanced degrees are in positions 3 and 4
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 20
Stage 3 – Relativism
Individual recognizes the need to support opinions
Rationale for beliefs takes into account questioning as well as a contextual basis for positions taken.
Knowledge is viewed more qualitatively.
Knowledge is contextually defined, based on evidence and supporting arguments.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 21
Position 5: Relativism
Student now sees everything as relative
Relativism is now the common characteristic and absolutes are the exceptions. This is the reverse of position 4.
Relativistic thought becomes habitual without being noticed.
Students in a relativistic position advances beyond the “all opinions are equal” stage by using evidence to develop positions which are more likely.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 22
Position 6: Relativism – Commitment Foreseen
Student can see the need for commitment, but has not yet made it
Commitment is a mature decision made after one has accepted that the world can be viewed as relativistic and has seen all of the possibilities
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 23
Position 6: Relativism – Commitment Foreseen
Previous decisions recalled and examined from a detached viewpoint.
Commitments can be made in a variety of areas such as career, religion, marriage, politics, values, etc.
Major commitments are not to be rushed. Student may stay in position 6 for a while.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 24
Stage 4 – Commitment
Student finds the sense of identity searched for elsewhere.
Knowledge learned from others integrated with personal experience and thought.
Making choices in a contextual world.
Initiates the ethical development of the thinker
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 25
Positions 7, 8 and 9: Levels of Commitment
Positions 7 through 9 are levels of commitment beginning initially in position 7.
Positions represent degrees of development and depth.
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 26
Other Cognitive Development Models
Baxter Magolda's Model of Epistemological Reflection
Belenky's Epistemological Perspectives from Which Women Know and View the World
Sinnott’s Complex Postformal Thought
Gateway Engineering Education Coalition 27
References
Wankat, Phillip C., Oreovicz, Frank S., Teaching Engineering, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, Chapter 14.
www.cs.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/perry.positions.html
www.ericfacility.net/ericdigest/ed284272.html
www.new.towson.edu/iact/main_files/cognitive.htm
admin.vmi.edu/ir/sid.htm