Change, Self-organization and the Search for Causality in Educational Research and Practice

Abstract

Causality is an inextricable part of the educational process, as our understanding of what works in education depends on our ability to make causal attributions. Yet, the research and policy literature in education tends to define causality narrowly as the attribution of educational outcomes to intervention effects in a randomized control trial context. This reduction of the educational process to simple input – output relationships leaves important questions unattended about how change is produced in educational systems, and how observed results can be predicted based on the propensity toward change in the baseline settings of those systems. This paper considers these questions from a Complex Dynamical Systems perspective, and concludes that answers to them can qualify the findings from at least some experiments.

Perspectives on Complexity, Its Definition and Applications in the Field

“…The higher level characteristics (e.g., classroom climate) arguably influence the possibilities and constraints on individual student learning, while at the same time, the extent to which learning and productive interactions take place have a decisive influence on this climate and how it would be perceived, by the participants themselves as well as by others. This circular relationship between the behavior of individual agents and the systemic constellations of which they are part illustrates the notion of recursive causality (Koopmans, 2014), which is an important and under-researched aspect of how we seek to describe educational change.…”

“…Over the past decade, the term complexity has readily made inroads into the educational literature, which now includes references to complexity in the discussion of educational change at the school and district level (Lemke & Sabelli, 2008;Trombly, 2014), learning systems (Davis & Sumara, 2006), curriculum (Doll, Jr., 2008;Hussain, Conner, & Mayo, 2014;Smitherman, 2005), pedagogy (Phelps, 2005), research methodology (Hetherington, 2013;Koopmans, 2014), epistemology (Alhadeff-Jones, 2008;Gilstrap, 2011;Le Moigne, 2013), classroom dynamics (Semetsky, 2005), English as a second language writing (Nelson, 2004), spirituality (Low, 2008), creativity (Trueit, 2005) and ethics (Bai & Banack, 2006).…”

The Dynamics of Cognitive Performance: What Has Been Learnt from Empirical Research in Science Education

“…The randomized control trials (RCT) and related designs such as quasi---experimental ones in educational settings and any social process are questionable, at least insofar as the nonlinear hypothesis is concerned. The main weakness of RCT in educational experiments is that the process under investigation is, in fact, ignored and the system is faced as a 'ʹblack box'ʹ Koopmans (2014a;2014b). However, cognitive and social phenomena taking place in educational settings are not mechanistic processes where the effect of each contributed component can be linearly expressed in the final result.…”

Bifurcation and Hysteresis Effects in Student Performance: The Signature of Complexity and Chaos in Educational Research

“…The experiment as a scientific method has been the only suitable approach to establish causality; however the randomized control trials (RCT) and related designs such as quasi-experimental ones in educational settings and any social process are questionable from various points of view. Koopmans (2014a;2014b) discusses the disadvantages of RCT in educational experiments, where the process under investigation is considered as a ʹblack boxʹ. This approach focuses on measurements of input/output conditions ignoring the underlying processes or mechanisms which are actually reflect the nature of the phenomenon under investigation.…”