The Teaching of Science as Enquiry

1. The Teaching of Science as Enquiry A review of J. J. Schwab’s work on the nature of science

2. What is this work? • An Inglis (later Brandeis Foundation) presentation, put into essay form in 1962 and published by Cambridge University Press; • In it, Schwab questions the practice of teaching science over the last 100 years, exacerbated by the then-concern over science & technology instruction in the immediate post-Sputnik climate.

3. A central concern: • “What will fulfill this need can be stated in equally simple terms. It is, ironically enough, that science be taught as science. What is required is that in the very near future a substantial segment of our publics [sic] become cognizant of science as a product of fluid enquiry.” • “Enquiry” is used in place of “inquiry” to draw special distinction to the process of doing and the process of teaching science, as separate from a common definition.

4. Background • Plato saw a natural division of people in society: • A subordinate, auxiliary, and managerial class, taught a body of doctrine that was conveyed as sure truths. Members of this class were to be indoctrinated, ingrained, and habituated into loyalty and belief. Systematic loyalty was the nature of education. • A second, upper class, was to be educated that the true doctrine was that truth was no mover than the best available opinion and by its nature, incomplete. Policy makers were taught systematic doubt and continual inquiry.

5. Background • T. Jefferson embraced this philosophy, seeing education divided between: • what the masses needed to make a living; and • what the natural aristoi needed for reasoning faculties and habits of reflection.

6. This leads to a fundamental distinction in how science is perceived and promulgated: The rhetoric of conclusions: The temporary constructions of scientific knowledge are conveyed as empirical, literal, and irrevocable truths. Narrative of enquiry: The nature of science is conveyed as exactly what science is, that science is fluid and investigations are driven by ambiguity, incomplete information, negotiation, dialogue, discourse, and consensus.

7. The Rhetoric of Conclusions has certain advantages: • Facts are presented, with no mention of reasons or evidence for what is asserted, simply because everyone of importance says it is so; • It is easy to encapsulate in textbooks; • It is easy to delegate the tasks of organizing instructional materials into an editorial task; • It is easy to assess as a direct quantitative fashion

8. But as a consequence: • “Discoveries” are remote, third-person capsules of information; • The discoveries are shown as a great synthesis that ends a cycle in inquiry; • The status of such discoveries as reinterpretations and introductions of new structures is suppressed; • The role of data is minimized in deference to the articulation of the core principles.

9. Two Processes of Enquiry • Each requires different competencies and are both practiced by different sciences; • Stable enquiry – constructs an edifice of principle, such that work is designed to fill blank spots without questioning the principles as a whole. The principles define the problem and the method, but are not problems of investigation in themselves; • Fluid enquiry – proceeds to the invention of new concepts and principles, and tests them for adequacy and feasibility. The goal is not to fill in the blanks but to create new principles that redefine a subject and guide new stable inquiries.

10. Two Processes of Enquiry • Stable inquiry rarely tolerates faults and failure, attributing such as poor application of methods or inadequate defining of questions with respect to principles. Judgment is by executive fiat. • Fluid enquiry works primarily through failure and frustration, realizing that normal guides no longer are adequate or useful. Judgment is by legislative decision.

11. Enquiry allows for a range of approaches: • Questions and methods are specified to allow students to discover relationships not already known by them; • Questions can be posed, but the methods and solutions are left for the student to define and justify; • Presentation of the raw phenomenon, without specification of problem, method, or solution.

12. Consequences?: • Enquiry introduces doubt and a level of discomfort to the investigation; • Learners are not rewarded for passive and docile learning, but by active learning in which lecture and textbook are subject to challenge; • Weight is not given to the answers, but on how to frame the questions and define the methods of investigation; • Alternative answers are allowed through a justification of method.

13. Why are such distinctions important? • Scientists – if all that we train is the techniques without question, then all we will get will be technicians; • Political Leadership – “The lay leader who conceived of science in the dogmatic mode would be unable to cope with the existence of a variety of opinions and advices from different representatives of the same special science.” • Informed Public – without an understanding of the narrative of enquiry, students assume that scientific knowledge is dogmatic, and is either immutable, uninteresting, or both.