Thursday, June 14, 2007
Scardamalia and Bereiter, "Levels of Inquiry in Writing Research"
Bereiter, Carl, and Marlene Scardamalia. "Levels of Inquiry in Writing Research." Research On Writing: Principles and Methods. Peter Mosenthal, Lynne Tamor, and Sean A. Walmsley, eds. New York: Longman, 1983. 3-25.
Motivated by an acute opposition to "the miscellaneous character of much writing research, with its orientation toward topics and methods rather than toward goals, and with its general lack of cumulative force" (3), Scardamalia and Bereiter propose six levels of inquiry, calling it "a framework for the kind of interaction that should lead to a paradigm" (22). Their typology tends to favor a hierarchical scheme in some places, while in other places, they emphasize interaction, incorporation, a "weak sequentiality," supplemental relations (rather than replacements from one level to the other (7)), and a cyclical, spiral course (3). In explicit terms, they say "higher levels of inquiry are not seen to be any way better than lower levels" (4), but their accounts of the higher levels are approached more generously and with a fair amount of self-reference (particularly for Levels 2, 4, and 5). Yet another example of re-hierarchizing the typology according to certain methodologies and their respective level-associations can be found near the end: "At present [1983], holistic methods [i.e., the "phenomenological, ethnographic, hermeneutic, and qualitative"] appear to be used only at Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. However, there are developments afoot in cognitive science that may provide the necessary theoretical tools for more phenomenological and contextualized inquiry at Levels 5 and 6" (21). Cognitive science bears out the "theoretical tools" that will bring "holistic methods" along to the highest two levels, according to Scardamalia and Bereiter.
Elsewhere, too, they assert a stance ("in this era of competing methodologies there is a special need to promote tolerance and a free spirit of inquiry" (4)) and then then re-draw it (theory-wary, "we do not like to see this stifling orthodoxy [a Level 5 edict "never to leave home without a theory"] carried over into the modern era in the form of insistence that every researcher have a theory, whether there is any basis for a theory or not" (20). Although the two statements are not entirely at odds, Scardamalia and Bereiter are clearly critical of certain approaches to Level 5, the level where theory turns up, critical in such a way that might be at odds with their commitment to "tolerance and a free spirit of inquiry."
The article includes one table, which presents the six levels, characteristic questions, and typical methods. Here are the levels and methods.
- Level 1: Reflective inquiry | Methods: Information observation, introspection, literature review, discussion, argument, private reflection.
- Level 2: Empirical variable testing | Factorial analysis or variance, Correlation analysis, Surveys, Coding of compositions.
- Level 3: Text analysis | Error analysis, Story grammar analysis, Thematic analysis.
- Level 4: Process description | Thinking aloud protocols, Clinical-experimental interviews, Retrospective reports, Videotape recordings.
- Level 5: Theory-embedded experimentation | Experimental procedures tailored to questions, Chronometry, Interference.
- Level 6: Simulation | Computer simulation, Simulation by intervention.
Level 1 is primary, and, while it "draws on knowledge and hunches of all sorts," it is not especially theoretical, at least not in the way Scardamalia and Bereiter discuss theory. "Level 2 findings are a supplement to, not a replacement for, Level 1 intuitions" (8). Level 2 is impeded by what S&B call "combinatorial explosion," (9) or the impossibility of controlling variables (a feature that also inhibits Level 2's generalizability). Level 3 works toward story grammars, toward the "lawfulness" of a text as it adheres to certain rules.
Scardamalia and Bereiter pursue a "systematic way of viewing the varied forms of inquiry into the process of written composition" (3), and they do so with a repeated commitment to teleology (i.e., goals, product, purpose as the driving forces for research). In the end, they suggest that the collapse of empiricism has made new movements possible (20), and thus there is a pressing need for their scheme, which, they contend, "may serve as an intellectually sound replacement for the now largely discredited notion of the basic-to-applied continuum" (23). Despite their announcements to the contrary, the leveled-scheme comes across as hierarchical, ordered in such a way that the higher-numbered levels match with forms of inquiry that are more cherished (perhaps because they are rarified, even preserving theory's scarcity (21a)) than are the lower levels (Level 1, with its intuition needs Level 2's observations to bolster it). Scardamalia and Bereiter end with a few "practical points on which the ideas behind the Levels of Inquiry scheme might be helpful" (22). How will they be helpful? 1.) For resolving controversies over the comparison of methods, 2.) for encouraging cross-level communication, 3.) for planning research, but avoiding "pigeonholing" when doing so, 4.) for encouraging interdisciplinary involvement, and 5.) for demonstrating the contributions of research to improvement in teaching writing.
- Just how flexible and fluid are the Levels?
- "we need to describe child rhetoric" (23)
- When emphasizing interdisciplinarity and expert-types, the two they suggest should be involved (by "most obvious need") are experts in "written composition" and experts "in studying thought processes" (22d).
Terms: weak sequentiality (4), hysterical empiricists (6), quasi-self-evident character (of Level 1) (8), combinatorial explosion (9), collapse of empiricism (20), holistic methods (21), child rhetoric (23).
"A descriptive model of the composing process, such as that produced by Hayes and Flower (1980), is an intellectual construction based on inferred invariances and protocol data" (13).
"The layer [Level 4] describes is the layer of conscious thought. It describes the flow of attention during composing, but it does not reveal why attention shifts when it does and where it does" (13). What of unconscious? Level 1? Level 0?
"A point we keep repeating throughout this chapter is that methods cannot be judged except in relation to purposes" (15). Teleology.
Theory def.: "Nevertheless [role-playing] has the properties of a theory: it can be limited in scope or applicable to a variety of situations, it can yield confirmed or unconfirmed predictions, and it can be refined in the light of results" (17).
"Nonetheless, Level 7 inquiry does offer the most promise of yielding knowledge that can be put to direct use in instructional design" (20).
Posted by Derek Mueller at June 14, 2007 10:08 PM to Models