Bill, you wrote,
> >Ok so -- the major weakness that a contender (known as "design
> experiment"),
> >to the developmental research laid out in chapter 5, displays is its
> singular
> >basis on cognitive theory, to the exclusion of other developments in the
> social
> >sciences. For example, the development of design experiment methodology,
> to
> >the best of my knowledge, ignores Bronfenbrenner's work on ecological
> validity
> >and reciprocality. Ironically the term "design science" purveys the facade
> of
> >science's success in shaping engineering practices, while ignoring science
> >itself as an historical, accumulative, and diversified ensemble of
> experimental
> >and theoretical strategies, technologies, and conceptualizations. With
> such a
> >narrow foundation, for example, it is possible to delineate and articulate
> >independent and dependent variables on learning outcomes. Consequently,
> the
> >focus is primarily on cognitive skills, and an approach thus defined never
> >comes to fully challenge the culture of schooling, and instead propagates
> the
> >deep technocratic-meritocratic structures that energize it. Furthermore,
> the
> >methodology being blind to the ecology and economy of schooling, it is not
> >possible for many teachers to participate in design experiments, and so
> while
> >wide-spread tinkering is not possible, perhaps it is only for those Ph.D.
> >candidates who can muster the resources and overcome the two major
> constraints
> >imposed by U.S. society, i.e. money and time.
>
In the past on XMCA, I have referenced a book edited by Kindermann and
Valsiner entitled, Development of Person-Context Relations. Although the
articles and methodologies presented by the authors in this collection would
not directly help daily practitioners secure grant monies or research
projects it is a fantastic guide for those of us who are interested in
maintaining methodologies that do document data while still practicing
successful service delivery. Interestingly enough two of the topics
discussed are how children understand economic principles and the use of time
as a quantitative measure.
Best regards,
eric
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 01:01:32 PDT