In the situation Annette describes below, it might be easy to
predict what students might do if we remember what sorts
of cognitive biases and heuristics people ordinarily rely upon.
These would include: (see the topic "cognitive biases" on
Wikipedia for a much longer list as a starting point):
(1) Confirmation bias: if a person has a particular opionion
or belief about an issue, that person will tend to construct an
argument that supports that opinion/belief as well as gather
evidence consistent with it. (An alternate strategy would be
to have the person construct a list of Pros and Cons for the
issue as well as specifying the source of support for each
point as well as the quality of the source [personal experience,
published research, voices in one's head, etc.]). There are
various problems with relying upon this bias but in a group
problem solving situation it might lead to polarization among
members because different members have a specific viewpoint
that feel is true and want to maintain; this also ties into how
the group manages dissent.
(2) Availability heuristic: certain types of knowledge and
information are more readily available for cognitive processing
than others (presumably a deeper level of reflection on an
issue or problem would bring out these less accessible pieces
of knowledge). It is also possible that such readily available
information is felt to be more "true" ("my gut tells me so")
than info that is not so readily available (i.e., the first response
is a more relible indicator of what a person thinks than what
they say after they've had time to think about it). The point
here is that the student must learn that what he/she knows
may well be an inadequate knowledge base to thinking about
the issue and needs to examine relevant sources (e.g., the
emipirical research literature) to extend this knowledge.
(3) Cooperative vs Competitive/Adversarial Styles of
Communication: if working in a group, how is dissent to be
handled if it is allowed at all? If a group implicitly adopts
a "cooperative" mode of communication where everyone
tries to build upon what other people say and support what
they say as well as minimizing disagreement or dissent, the
development of consensus ("we need to speak with one voice")
may be seen as being more important that acknowledging that
an issue or situation may be very complicated and that different
viewpoints can lead to wildly different interpretations as well as
predictions ("Give War a Chance" vs "Give Peace a Chance").
Similarly, a competitive mode of communication might produce
greater coverage of issues but at the cost of polarizing participants.
The U.S. courtroom is a good example of where people try
to develop an understanding of a situation but the two sides
usually do not have the goal of developing a single factual account
of what happened, rather they have specific viewpoints and
interpretations to promote which are at odds with each other
(leading to a conclusion that a person is either guilty or not guilty).
How then are contrary viewpoints/dissent handled as well as
what criteria are used to distinguish between valid viewpoints
(e.g., research based, logically consistent, etc.) from invalid
viewpoints (e.g., ad hominen, "swiftboating", delusions, etc.)?
(4) Problem Solving based on Surface Features vs Deep
Structure (also seen in Expert-Novice differences in problem
solving): Some researchers have talked about "folk psychology",
that is, how everyday experiences are interpreted in the context
of one's experiences and the shared beliefs and knowledge of
one social group or community (i.e., commonsense). One major
problem with such accounts is that they don't have the properties
of scientific theories (e.g., falsifiable) and take on a life of their
own even in the face of contrary evidence (e.g., "creation myths").
There may be specific instances where such knowledge and beliefs
may be practical and useful but are seriously misleading in others.
For example, in comparing the problem solving approaches taken
by novices and experts, say with physics problems, it is clear that
novices focus on surface features of the problem instead of the
deep structure features (e.g., the operation of a law of physics).
Novices are unlikely to have the necessary knowledge to
approach and solve problems at a deep level, regardless of
whether the problems are in physics or chess or interpersonal
relations. As teachers, I think that we would like our students
to operate like "little experts" but as researchers in this field
have pointed out, becoming an expert is slow (i.e., the "10 year
rule), hard process requiring dedicated practice.
It might be a worthwhile exercise to record how groups engage
in group problem solving, see when and how individual biases
and heuristics kick in, how are these handled (i.e., everyone
accepts them as "true" or the group rejects them as "false"),
how dissent is handled, how "sabotage" is handled (i.e.,
when someone operates to undermine the process either
because they haven't bought into the process or think it
would be "fun" to screw with it or think that it is fundamentally
incorrect [e.g., group project is how to promote the use of
condoms and safer sex practices but a member or two believes
that premarital/extramarital sex is evil and sinners deserve
whatever negative consequences they receive]), and, finally,
does the group realize that they may not have enough
knowledge about the situation and how do they deal with it?
Just some thoughts.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
.
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:05:11 -0700 (PDT), Annette Taylor wrote:
> As we all know, misconceptions about psychological science
> abound. When I've asked a group of students which is more
> true: "Birds of a feather flock together", or "Opposites attact"
> and have them work in small groups, students are far more likely
> to begin with describing relationships where people who are
> seemily different on the surface have successful relationships--
> (1) unfortunately they don't go beneath the surface to deeper
> issues of basic core values. (2) they are drawn to those very
> dramatic examples, exceptional examples, rather than all the
> mundane examples that would favor the other position.
> (3) So this whole idea of "discovery learning" often ends up
> being a discussion in small groups about students' anecdotal
> experiences and is a horrible technique. At best, giving them
> access to a computer *might* lead them to some good readings;
> but given time constraints they could never digets the literature
> quickly enough in a class period--and who can devote more
>time than that?
>
> In other disciplines there may be better quality evidence than
> anecdote, but, unfortunately, for most students of psychology,
> especially at the introductory level, they use their previous life's
> experiences as evidence. Sigh.
>
> Indeed, I believe we should be very careful when talking about
> applying pedagogical techniques across disciplines. My colleague
> and I have an article under review in ToP (since last April--apparently
> they are having editorial problems????) that direct instruction is
> the best way to alleviate misconceptions.
>
> Which perhaps us back to the issue of operational definitions for
> these different pedagogies.
---
