A Learners’ View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social Life.
Authority of a Learners’ View (ALV)
Main Article: General Articles
AUTHORITY for a learners’ view (ALV) rests on descriptions of learning in experimental behavioral and social science research reports. These are technical-scientific descriptions. Others may replicate or use them by following the patterns these scientists report. Doing so assumes that a measured amount of confidence in the validity and reliability of these reports exists and that others may clarify that confidence.
Simply stating that origin has not ended the discussion of authority of ALV or its implications for education. This approach to ALV does not include descriptions of admonitions, theories, common culture, or other speculation or opinions about the existence of ALV.
To assert that a learners’ view exists, we must first answer a common preliminary question. What proof shows that ALV exists apart from other claims about learning? Isn’t research just a way of getting results that match a belief, even when that belief is not yet stated? Is it legitimate to use one type of empirical evidence over others and over common practice to claim the existence of ALV? Isn’t this cherry-picking to formulate a theory, or at the least, a model?
Proof
Science exists as processes. Scientists use these processes to describe relationships between properties in nature. The word proof does not exist in the vocabulary or customs of that process. Nor does it exit in descriptions of results of the science. Proof is a word borrowed from mathematics and juris prudence for non-scientific discussions about education.
The closest synonyms in science to proof might be validity and reliability. Each refers to a systematic way to obtain a measured amount of confidence in results of scientific study. For example, validity refers to the amount of confidence to have in the soundness of the research, the usefulness of the research, and the relevance of the results to the question asked of the research to answer. Reliability refers to the likelihood of obtaining the same results another time using the same procedures under similar conditions. In these ways, measures of confidence result from statistical calculations.
Research as Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
Science offers ways to test the validity and reliability of so called self-fulfilling prophesies. Scientists use two types of strategies to conduct these tests. One assumes rationality of identifiable patterns of human behavior. This strategy relies on straight line logic and assumes that logic is sufficient to identify and make changes to a design if the study uses circular reasoning. Another type of strategy, for example in the study of chaos theories of society, does not assume rationality or identifiable patterns. It relies on mathematical calculations to examine affects on society of events with low probabilities of having significant relationships. These calculations avoid, by design, circular reasoning. Scientists who conduct studies from both strategies report their studies for review and examination by others, who among other things, point out in professional publications, circular reasoning when they find it.
Changes in operational definitions from one part of a process to another can result in circular reasoning in a study as well as in discussions and application of study result.
Experimental Empirical Research
The term experimental empirical research denotes processes to compare results of aspects of observable life under two or more conditions. This is the most rigorous form of examining our universe. For example, one study conducted by educators, psychologists, and sociologists compared results of five different pedagogue over three academic years on IQ scores (i.e., on vocabulary building and problem solving) of learners from two social classes in middle America.
Cherry-Picking
Scientists have procedures to follow in order to make cherry-picking unlikely. To say it kindly, scientists frown on cherry-picking research questions, research designs and procedures, as well as content of research reports.
Each of procedure of the research process rests on a body of peer reviewed published literature that scientists study and use in disciplined ways.
ALV
To the extent to which y0u accept the points outlined above, you know the authority for a learners’ view and why application of it will likely accelerate, increase, and deepen (AID) learning.
Related Reading
- A Learners’ View (ALV) of Learning Abstract
- ALV Philosophy of Learning
- Experimental Research
- Homans, G. (1969). Prolog: The sociological relevance of behaviorism. In R. Burgess & D. Bushnell, Jr. (Eds.) Behavioral Sociology: The Experimental Analysis of Social Process. NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 1-24.
- Technical-Scientific Literacy of Educators (TSLE)