Hey, All -- Okay, I'm going out on a limb here*, but this may be one of the silliest things I've ever read in Inside Higher Ed, and I've read some silly ones there.
Simply put, just because something is a social construct (er, gender, e.g.) doesn't mean that it isn't real, and certainly doesn't mean that it's not measurable. m * I'm on a limb because I'm still reading up on and trying to better understand "social constructs" -- but so far I think a very good case has been made, say by Hacking, that they're "real" in the sense that pretty much anything else is "real." ------- Marc L Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology Baker University College of Arts & Sciences ------- > -----Original Message----- > From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 7:58 AM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: [tips] The Assessment Impasse :: Inside Higher Ed :: > Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs > > A piece on why "objective assessment" of a construct like > "critical thinking" is probably a chimera: > http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/02/05/griffin > > Here's a taste: > "...if we were measuring gravity, we could probably rely upon > gravity existing and acting the same way regardless of > whether it is being investigated by a physicist in Indiana or > a physicist in India. > Furthermore, it seems likely that gravity would carry on, > dragging every bouncy thing back to earth, even if the human > race were wiped out by aliens. > > "Could the same thing be said of critical thinking? If there > were no humans to think, would critical thinking exist? > (Please don't bring up chimpanzees - that's different.) > Critical thinking probably exists only as we humans think it > up, and it is therefore socially constructed, highly > dependent upon specific social, historical, and cultural > contexts, and doomed forever to evolve as the people who use > it evolve. > Definitions of critical thinking have meaning to the persons > who use them communally in everyday discourse, thereby > developing common understandings of them based in real-life > situations over time, but the definitions are not portable > from Indiana to India in the same way gravity is." > > Chris > -- > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 > Canada > > 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 > [email protected] > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > ========================== > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
