the place of theory in educational research

8/16/2019 The Place of Theory in Educational Research

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The Place

of

Theory

in

Educational Research

PATRICK SUPPES

Stan ord University

I

every modern society, the edu-

cation of its citizens,

young

and

old, is amajor concern. In some

developing countries,he educa-

tional activities of the government

consume as much as a third of the

national budget. Inhenited

States today, it is estimated that ed-

ucational activities require at least a

hundred billion dollars a year. Most

educational activities in this country

and elsewhere are likeotherforms

of social and economic activity in

society in that only a slight effort is

made to study the character of the

activities and to understand them as

intellectual, economic, or social

processes. It s rue hat herehas

been a longer tradition, even if a

fragile one, of studying the charac-

ter of education, ut I think all

members of this Association are

very much aware hat educational

research is aminor activity com-

pared with education as a whole.

All of us probably feel on occa-

sion that there is little hope that ed-

ucational esearch, given the small

national ffort devoted tot, will

have any real mpact on education

as whole. Such pessimistic

thoughts are not historically, I

think,upported by the evidence,

especially when we look at the

evidence outside of education as

well as inside. By looking outside

education

I

digress for a moment to

examine some nstances of the m-

pact of science

on

society. All of the

characteristic eatures of electronic

communicationandrapid ranspor-

tation of our society are unique

products of the long tradition of

science and technology, and the

case is especially stronghathe

changes that have taken place re-

cently, for example, he widespread

introduction of color television,

have depended in a direct way on

prior scientific research.

It might be useful to mention

eight outstanding recent cases that

have been studied for the National

Science FoundationBattelle Re-

port, 1973), because the listing of

these cases gives abetter sense of

the diversity of important recent

contributionso society arising

from specific scientific work. The

eight cases all represent develop-

ments thatalmost certainly would

never have taken place simply on

the basis of either enlightened com-

mon sense oromepproach of

barempiricism. The eight cases

rangeacrossa variety of scientific

theories and technologies and

variety of segments of society in

theirpplications. They arehe

heartpacemaker; he development

of hybrid grains and the green revo-

lution; electrophotography, which

led to office copiers or, as we say in

ordinary parlance, Xerox machines;

input-output economic analysis

developed originally in the thirties

by Leontief; organophosphorus in-

secticides; oral contraceptives,

which rest

on

relatively delicate

matters of steroidchemistry;mag-

netic ferrites, which are widely used

in communications quipment nd

computers; and videotape recorders,

which depended upon a confluence

of electromagnetic and communica-

tion theory and he technology of

audio recording. Compared with

the mpact of some of these scien-

tific and technological develop-

ments, the nitial cost of research

and development has been relatively

minor.

As these examples llustrate, re-

search can have an mpact in our

society, andt certainly does in

many different ways. To a large ex-

tent, education pays more lip serv-

ice to research than do other main

segments of the society. Every large

school system has spart of its

central office staffomeort of

research unit. The schools and col-

leges of education associated with

institutions of higher education

throughout the country are all

charged with research responsibili-

ties, some ofwhich are specifically

written into the legislative charter

of the institution.

When the Office of Education

was established by federal legisla-

tion more than a hundred years ago

in

1867,

the first section of the Act

defined the chief purpose

s

the new

bureau,ater called the Office of

Education, as one of “collecting

such statisticsndacts as shall

show the condition and progress of

education in the several statesand

territories, nd of diffusing infor-

mation respecting theorganization

andmanagement of schools and

school systems and. methods of

teaching.’’ There is not in this

charge to the Office of Education a

June 974

3

Educational Researcher, 3, 1974, pp. 3-10.


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serious thrust of theory,and t is

fair to say that most of the efforts

of the Office of Education have not

been directed toward the nurturing

of educational theory, but rather to

themoremundane nd mpirical

matters of collecting statisticsand

facts and of disseminating informa-

tion about the nation’s schools.

The point

I

am making in lei-

surely fashion is that for at least a

hundred years thereas been a

serious respect for factsandstatis-

tical data about education and also

for many empirical studies, often of

excellent design and execution, to

evaluateheearning of students,

the effectiveness of a given method

of instruction, and so forth.At

least until recently, the empiricism

of education has been more en-

lightened and sophisticatedhan

the empiricism of medicine, which

represents an investment compara-

ble to education in our society.

The period running from he be-

ginning of this century to the onset

of World War II hasometimes

been described as the golden age of

empiricism in education.Certainly

it was marked by a serious effort to

move from riori ogmasnd

principles of education o consider-

ation of empirical resultsand even

experimental design of inquiries to

test the relative efficiency or power

of different approaches oa given

part of the curriculum. Detailed

analysis of thenature of testsand

how tonterprethe results was

begun, and serious attempts, es-

pecially by Edward Thorndikeand

his collaborators, were madeo

apply a broad range of results from

educational psychology to actual

problems of learning in the class-

room.

Unfortunately, this golden age of

empiricism was replaced not by a

deeper theoretical viewpoint toward

educational esearch,but by a no-

ticeable decline of research. To

somextent, the overenthusiastic

empiricism of the

1920s

promoted a

negative reaction from teachers, ad-

ministrators, nd arents. Opposi-

tion to achievement tests, o stand-

ardization, and to too much ‘objec-

tivity’ in educationbecame rife. A

summary of many of the disap-

pointments in theempirical move-

ment in education may be found in

4

the 1938

Yearbook

o

the National

Socie ty for the S tudy

o

Education.

Although in many respects John

Dewey can be identified with the

development of the empirical tradi-

tion, it is important to note that his

work and that of his close collabo-

rators is not notable for the sophis-

tication of its scientific aspects;

Dewey himself, it can properly be

said, continually stood on shifting

ground in advocating empirical and

innovative attitudesowardeach-

ing. In fact,onedoesnot find in

Dewey themphasis on tough-

minded empirical research that one

would like, butather kind of

hortatory expression of conviction

in the value of methods of inquiry

brought directly to heclassroom,

and indeed more directly tohe

classroom thanohe scientific

study of what was

going

on in

the

classroom.

Beginningn the 1950s and es-

pecially since Sputnik, we have had

a new era of a eturn o esearch,

and without doubt much valuable

work has been done in the last two

decades. It is also importanto

recognize, of course, that much of

thehrust for curriculumeform

and change in the schools has been

bolstered by one form or another of

new romanticismuntouched by so-

phisticated consideration of data or

facts.

This superficial sketch of the

historical developments over the

past hundred years leads to the con-

clusion that research, let alone any

theoretically oriented esearch,has

occupied almost always a pre-

carious place in education. It might

therefore be thought that the proper

themeorresidentialddress

would be the place of

research

in

education and not the more special-

ized and restrictedopic of the

place of theory in educational re-

search. However, as the examples I

have cited fromheational

Science Foundation tudy ndicate,

there is more than meets thé eye on

the problems of developing an ade-

quate body of theory in educational

research, and success in developing

such a body of theorycan mpact

significantly on

thelace ofe-

search in education. I would like to

turn to this question in more detail

as my first point of inquiry.

1. Wh y Theory?

There are five kinds of argument

I would like to examine tha t can be

used to make the case for the rele-

vance of theory to educational re-

search. The first is an argument by

analogy, the second is in terms of

theeorganization of experience,

the hird is as a device for recog-

nizing complexity, the fourth is a

comparison with Deweyean prob-

lem solving, and he fifth concerns

the triviality of bareempiricism. I

now turno each of these rgu-

ments.

Argument by analogy. The suc-

cess of theory in the natural sciences

is recognized by everyone. More re-

cently, some of the social sciences,

especially economics and psychol-

ogy n certain parts, have begun to

achieve considerable heoretical de-

velopments. It is argued thathe

obvious and universally recognized

importance of theory in themore

mature sciences is strong evidence

for the univer3al generalization that

theory is important in all sciences,

and consequently, we have an argu-

ment by analogy for the importance

of theory in educational research.

However, since at least the elev-

enth century, when Anselern tried

to use anargument by analogy to

prove the existence of God, there is

proper skepticism that an argument

by analogy carries much weight. Al-

though theargument hat he suc-

cessof thenatural sciences in the

use of theory provides an excellent

example for educational research, it

does not follow that theory must be

comparably useful as we move from

one subject to the other.

Reorganization of experience. A

more important way to think about

the ole of theory is toattack di-

rectly the roblem of identifying

the need for theory in a subject

matter. n all cases where theory

has been successful in science I

think we can make an excellent ar-

gument for the deeper organization

of experience the theory has thereby

provided. A powerful theory

changes our perspective on what is

importantand what is superficial.

Perhaps hemoststrikingexample

in the history of physics is the law

of inertia, which says that a body

shallcontinue uniformly in its di-

rection of motionuntilacted upon

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by somexternal force.Aristotle

andtherncientatural philos-

ophersereersuaded tha t the

evidenceof xpe rience s lear: A

bodydoes not continue in motion

unless it is acted upon by force. W e

can ll agre e hatour own broad

experience sexactly tha t of Aris-

totle’s. It was

a

deepnsight and

represented a radical reorganization

of how to think abo ut the world to

recognize tha t the theory of motion

iscorrectlyexpressed by laws ike

that of inertiaand seldom by our

direct commonsense experience.

A good example in education of

the mpa ct of theoryon eorganiz-

ing our way of thinkingaboutour

disciplines the infusion of eco-

nomic heory hathas aken place

in the astdecad e with suchvigor

and impact .

A good

survey is to be

found in the two-volumeeader

edited. by B laug, 1968, 1969.) T he

attemp t, for nstance , o develop an

econom ic theory of productivity for

our schools cane criticized in

man y differen t ways, bu t it still re-

main s hat we have been forced to

think anew ab out heallocation of

resources, especially of how we can

develop a deeper running theory for

the efficientallocation of resources

to increase productivity and, at he

sam eime,o developetter

theoryorhemeasurements of

inputandoutputand heconstruc-

tion of production functions.

Letme give one xample rom

some of my own discussions with

economists,specially with Dean

Jamison.Starting rom he econo-

mists’ way of looking atoutput, t

is natural to ask how we can meas-

urehe utput of anlementary

school,orxample. What

I

find

striking 3s the ack of previous dis-

cussion of this problem in the litera-

tur e of education. Exceptions re

Page, 1972, andage Breen,

1943.) Even if we restrict ourselves

to measurem ents of academ ic skills ,

andndeed nly tohe cademic

skillsassessedon stan dard achieve-

men t ests, we stillhave heprob-

lem of how to aggreg ate he meas-

urem ent of these skills to give

us

an

overallmeasure of output. Ifone

accepts he fact, as most of us do,

that academic achievement alone is

not importan t, but that a variety of

social and personal skills, as well as

the development of a sense s values

and of moralutonomy,re

needed, o ne is really nonplussed by

even crudeassessments of these n-

dividual omponents.The re is, of

course, the well-worn answer that

the things thatmattermostre

reallyneffable andmmeasurable,

but this romantic attitude is not one

for which I havemuch olerance. I

am simply struck in my own think-

ing by the difficulty of making a

goodassessment,andmy ense of

the difficulties has been put in focus

by trying to de al with some of the

theoreticaldeasconomistsave

brought to bear in education.

Recognition of complexity. One

of the hrus ts of theory is to show

that what appear on the surface o

be implematte rs of empirical in-

vestigation, on a deeper view, prove

to be complex a nd subtle. The basic

skills of langua ge and math ema tics

at any level of instruction,ut

primarily athe most lementary

level, provide good exam ples. If we

are offered wo methods of reading

it is straightforward to design an

experiment to seewhether or nota

difference of any significant magni-

tude between the two methods can

be found in the achievement of stu-

dents. Itha s been progress in edu-

cation to recognize that such prob-

lemsanetudied as scientific

problems,and t is a ma rk of the

work of the irst half of this cen-

tury, he goiden

ge

of empiricism

as I termed tearlier, o irmly

es-

tablish heuse of such me thod s in

education. It is anadditional tep,

however, and on e in which the rec-

ognition of theory is the main car-

rier of progress to recognize that

thempiricalomp arison of two

methods of teaching eadingor of

teachingubtraction,oake an

exam pleha t as been much re--

searched, is by no mea ns to provide

anything like the theory of how the

child learns to read or earns o do

arithmetic.

A mostlementaryerusal of

psychological onsiderations of in-

formation processing shows at once

how far we are romanadequa te

theory of learning even themost

elementarybasic kills. It is e-

quirement of theory , but not of ex-

perimentalism, to provide nalysis

of heprocess by which the child

acquires a basic skill and ater uses

it. It is a merit of theory to push for

adeeperunderstanding of theac-

quisition andnot o estuntil we

have a complete process analysis of

what he child doesandwhat goes

on insidehisheadashe acquiresa

new skill.

The history of physics can be

writtenaround heconce pt of the

searchorechanismsanging

from hereduc tion of astronomical

motions o compositions of circular

motions in the ime of Ptolemy o

theravitationalndlectromag-

neticechanisms of modern

physics. Pt has been to a partial ex-

tent, and should be to a greate r ex-

tent,aprima ry hrust of theory in

educational esearch to seek mech-

anismsr processes tha t answer

thequestion of why a given aspect

of education works the way it does.

This shoulde true whether we

consider th e individual learning of a

child beginningschoolor the much

broadernteraction betweendo-

lescents,heir peer group s,nd

what s upposed to akeplace in

their high school lassrooms. or

educationalurposes we need an

understanding of biosocialmecha-

nisms of influence as much as in

medicine we need an understanding

of biochemicalmechanisms or he

con trol of disease in a host r-

ganism. The searcheyondhe

facts for

a

Conception of mechanism

or of explanation orcesupon us a

recognition of the complexity of the

phenomenandhe need for

theory of this complexity.

Why not Deweyean problern

solving? The nstrumen tal view f

knowledge developed by Peirce and

Dewey led, especially n hehands

of Dewey, to an em phasis on the im-

portance of problem solving in in-

quiry. As Dewey repeatedlym-

phasized, nquiry is the trans form a-

tion of an ndeterm inate ituation

that resents a problemnto one

that is determinateand unified by

thesolution of the nitialproblem.

Dewey’s conception of inquirycan

be egarded as apropercorrective

ton overly scholasticnd rigid

conception of scientific heory, but

the weakness of replacingclassical

conc eptio ns of scientific heory by

inquiry sproble m solving is tha t

the rticulation of the historically

June 974

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and intellectually important role of

theory in inquiry is neglected or

slighted. In any case, even ifwe

accept some of Dewey’s criticisms

of classical philosophical concep-

tions of theory, we canargue or

the mportance of the development

of scientific theories asotential

tools for use in problem solving. It

would be a naive and careless view

of problem solving to think that on

each occasion where we find our-

selves n an indeterminatesituation

we can begin afresh o think about

the problem and noto bring to

bear a variety of sophisticated sys-

tematic tools. This sounds

so

obvi-

ous tha t it is hard to believe anyone

could disagree with it. Historically,

however, it ‘i s important o recog-

nize that under the influence of

Dewey educational leadership

moved away from development and

testing of theory, and Dewey him-

self did not properly recognize the

importance of deep-running sys-

tematic theories?

The newest version

of

the naive

problem-solving viewpoint is to be

found in the romantics running

fromJohnHolt oCharles Silber-

man, who seem to think that simply

by using our natural intuition and

by observing what goes on n class-

rooms we can put together all the

ingredients needed to solve our

educational problems. Toarge

extent these new romanticsare he

proper heirs of Dewey, and they

suffer from the same intellectual

weakness- the absence of the felt

need for theoretically based tech-

niques of analysis.

The continual plague of romantic

problem solvers in education will

only disappear,as have plagues of

the past, when the proper antidotes

are developed. My belief about

these antidotes is that we need

deep-running theories of the kind

that have driven alchemists out of

chemistry and astrologersut of

astronomy.

Triviality of bare empiricism. The

best general argument for theory in

educational research I have left for

last. This is the obvious triviality of

bare empiricism as an approach o

knowledge. Those parts of science

that have been beset by bare em-

piricism have suffered accordingly.

It is to be found everywhere his-

6

torically, ranging from he sections

on natural history in the early

Transactions

of the

Roya l Soc ie ty

of the seventeenth century to the

endless lists of case histories in

medicine, or as an example closer to

home, to studies of methods of in-

struction that report only raw data.

At its most extreme level, bare em-

piricism is simply the recording of

individual facts, and with no appa-

ratus of generalization rheory,

these barefacts duly recorded lead

nowhere. They do not provide even

apractical guide for future experi-

ence or policy. They do not provide

methods of prediction or analysis.

In short,bareempiricismdoesnot

generalize.

Theamerivialityay be

claimed for the bare intuition of the

romantics. Either bare empiricism

or bare intuition leads not only to

triviality, but also to chaos in prac-

tice if each teacher is left only to his

or her own observationsnd in-

tuitions. Reliance on bare empiri-

cism or barentuition in educa-

tional practice is a mental form of

streaking, and nudity of mind is not

as appealing as nudity of body.

2

Examples of

Theory

in

Educatìopld R esearch

Therere good examples of

theory in educationalesearch.

want to consider a few and examine

their characteristiceatures. After

surveying five mainareas inwhich

substantial theories may be found, I

turnoheeneral question of

whether we can expect develop-

ments of theory strictly within edu-

cationalesearch, or whether we

should think of educational re-

search as applied science, drawing

upon otherdomains for the unda-

mental theories considered, on the

model, for example, of pharma-

cology in relation o biochemistry,

or electrical engineering in relation

to physics.

Statistical design. The bible of

much if notmosteducational re-

search is atatistical bible, and

there is little doubt that the best use

of statistics in educational research

is at a high level. It is sometimes

thought by research workers in edu-

cation hat statistical design

is

sim-

ply used in experimental studies and

that it does not represent a theoreti-

calcomponent,butI think amore

accurate way of formulatinghe

situation is this. When the substan-

tive hypotheses being tested are es-

sentially empirical in character and

are not drawn from a broader theo-

reticalramework, then the only

theoreticalcomponent of the study

ís

thestatistical heory required to

provide a proper test of the hy-

potheses. As a broad generalization

I

would claim that he best-devel-

oped theory used n educational re-

search is the theory of statistical de-

sign of experiments. The sophisti-

cated level that has been reached in

these matters by the atter part of

the twentieth century is one of the

glories of science in the twentieth

century, nd the dedication to in-

sisting on proper organization of

evidence to make a strong inference

has been one of the most creditable

sides of educational research over

the past fifty years.

Theopprobrium heaped on mat-

ters statistical in educational circles

arises, Ihink,rom two main

sources. One is that

on

occasion the

teaching traditions have been bad

and students have been taughto

approach the use of statistics in rote

orookbook fashion, without

reaching for any genuine under-

standing of the inference procedures

and their intellectual justification.

The second is that the mere use of

statistics is not aubstitute for

good theoretical analysis about he

substantive questions at hand.

There is no doubthat excellent

statisticalmethods have beenused

more than once to test utterly trivial

hypotheses that could scarcely be of

interest to anyone. Neither of these

defects, however, makes a serious

case for thenimportance of

statistical theory.

Test theory. My second example

is closely related to the first, but is

more specific to ducationalmat-

ters. Theducationalractice of

basing decisions

on

tests has a long

and venerable history,he longest

and most continuous history being

theexaminations for mandarins in

China,unningromhe twelfth

centuryohe downfall of the

empire at the end of the nineteenth

century. The great traditions of test-

ingn OxfordandCambridge are

famousnd in previous years

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notorious. As tradition has it, stu-

dents preparing for the Mathemati-

cal Tripos at Cambridge worked

so

intensely and so feverishly that

many of them went from the exam-

ination room directly to the hospital

for period of recuperation.The

position tha t a man achieved in the

Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge

in the nineteenth century was one

of themost mportant actsabout

his entire career.

The competitive spirit about

examinations for admittance to col-

lege orraduate school in this

country is not at all a new phenom-

enon, but rather it represents an old

and established culturalradition.

What isnew in this century is the

theory of tests. In all of that long

history of00 years of Chinese

examinationshere seems to have

been no serious thoughtabout the

theory of such testsor even a sys-

tematicattempt o collect data of

empirical significance. It is an in-

sight that belongs to this century,

and historically willbe recorded as

an important achievement of this

century, to recognize that a heory

of tests is possible and has to a con-

siderable extent been developed. By

these remarks

I

do not mean to sug-

gest that theheory of tests has

reached a tate of perfection, but

ratherhat definite and clear ac-

complishments have taken place. It

is in fact a credit to the theory that

many of the more important weak-

nesses of current tests are explicitly

recognized. Certainlyhe concepts

of validity and reliability of tests,

and themore specific axioms of

classical testheory,epresent

permanent contribution to the liter-

ature of educational heory. Lord

Novick’s systematicreatise,

1968, provides a superb analysis of

theoundations of the classical

theory.)

Learning theory. InheMarch

1974 issue of the Educational Re

searcher

W. J.

McKeachiehasan

article entitled “The Decline and

Fall of the Laws of Learning.” He

examines what has happened to

Thorndike’s Law of Effect and Law

of Exercise, especially in the more

recent versions of reinforcement

theory advocated by Skinner.

McKeachie is right in his analysis

of the decline and fall of classical

laws of learning, but I think that

over thepast two decades the spe-

cific and more technical develop-

ment of mathematical models of

learning that have not made sweep-

ing claims as being the only laws of

learning or as being adequate to all

kinds of learning have accomplished

a great deal and represent a perma-

nent scientific advance. Moreover,

the development of mathematical

models of learning has not been re-

stricted o simple laboratorysitua-

tions, but has encompassed results

directly relevant toubject-matter

learning rangingromlementary

mathematicso acquisition at the

college level of a second language.

It is not to the point in this gen-

eral lecture to enter into details, but

because a good deal of my own re-

search is n this area, I cannot for-

bear a few moreemarks about

what has been accomplished. In the

case of mathematics, we can give a

detailed mathematical theory of the

learning of elementarymathemati-

cal concepts and skills by students.

The details of the heory are a far

cry from he early pioneering work

of Thorndike. n act, hemathe-

matical tools for the formulation of

detailedheory were simply not

available during the time of Thorn-

dike. would not want to claim

that the theories we can currently

construct and test are the last word

on these matters. The analysis of

specific mathematical skills and

conceptsas been achieved by

moving away fromhe simple-

minded conception of stimulus and

response found in Skinner’s writ-

ings. Ina previous paper given to

this Association, I criticized in

detail ome of the things Skinner

hashad to say about he learning

of mathematics (Suppes, 1972). I

shall not repeat those criticisms, but

rather in the present context,

I

shall

emphasize the positive and try o

sketch the kind of theoretical appa-

ratus that has been added to classi-

cal stimulus-response theories of

learning in order o have a heory

of adequatetructuraleptho

handle specific mathematical con-

cepts and skills.

As many of youwould expect,

the basic step is toostulate

hierarchy of internal processing on

the part of the student -processing

that must include the handling at

least in schematic form of the per-

ceptual format inwhich problems

are presented, whether they are

arithmeticlgorithms or simple

problems of a geometric character.

An internal processing language is

postulated and the basic mechanism

of learning is that of constructing

subroutinesrrogramsorhe

handling of particular concepts and

skills (Suppes, 1969b; Suppes

Morningstar, 1972, Ch.

4;

Suppes,

1972).

There is one important theoreti-

cal point about suchwork that I

would like to make, because I think

that ignoring this heoretical point

represents a major error on the part

of some learning psychologists and

also of physiological psychologists.

The point

is

that it

is

a mistake to

think of precisely one internal

processing language and one partic-

ular subroutine for a given skill or

concept being learned in thesame

form by each student. What we can

expect in an area like mathematics

is- behavioral isomorphism, but not

internalsomorphism, of sub-

routines. It is importanto think

about the theory

in

this way and

not to expect a point-for-point con-

firmation of the nternalprograms

constructed by thetudent s he

acquires new skills and concepts.

To assume that he physiology of

human beings is

so

constructed that

we can infer from he physiology

how particularasks are learned

and organized internally is as mis-

taken aso think that from the

specification of the physical hard-

ware of acomputer we can infer

thestructure of programs thatare

written for that computer. It is one

reason for thinking thathe con-

tributions of physiological psychol-

ogists toducational psychology

are necessarily limited in principle

and ot simply in practice. This

seems to me worth mentioning be-

causeurrently physiological

psychology is the fashion, and if we

are not careful we will begin to hear

that he next grea t hope in educa-

tional psychology willbe the con-

tributions we can expect from

physiological psychology.

I

am

makinghetrong claim that in

principle thismay not be possible,

and that we can proceed inde-

June 974

7


6/8

pendently within educational re-

search o develop powerful heories

of learningwithoutdependence on

theatest news fromeurophysi-

The kind of examples

I

have

sketched or lementary ma the ma -

tics an lso e xtendedoan-

guage skills and to he mpo rtant

problem of reading.Much of my

own recent work has been con-

cerned with first-ndecond-

languag e acquisition, but I shall not

try o expanduponhese matters

except again to say tha t what is im-

portan t abou t curren t work in these

areas is that specific theories of con-

siderable structuralepth, usmg

tools

developed in logic for seman-

tics and in linguistics foryntax,

have been c onstructed oprovidea

richness of th eory ndpotential

forubsequentevelopment that

has not existed until the past decade

or so (Sm ith, 1972 ; Suppe s, 1970,

1971,974; Suppes,mith,

Edveille: 1972).

I

am sanguine

abouthe possibilities forhe

future nd believe tha t substantive

contributions of importance to edu-

cation may be expected from earn-

ing theoryhroughouthe est of

this century.

Theories of instruction. One of

themost interestinganddirectap-

plications of modernork in

mathematical models of learning

has been

to

theburgeoningsubject

of theories of instruction. A theory

of instruction differs from a heory

of learning in the following respect.

W essumehatmathematical

model

of

learning will p rovide n

approximateescription of the

student s earning,and he task or

a heory of instruction is then to

settle hequestion

of

how the in-

structionalequence of concepts,

skills, and facts should be organized

to optimize fora given stude nt his

rate of learning. My colleague,

RichardAtkinson,as been suc-

cessfully applying such m etho ds for

the past several years, and som e of

the results he has achieved in begin-

ning readingkills ar e especially

strikingAtkin son, 1972, 1974;

Atkinson Paulson, 1972). Th e

mathematical techniques of optimi-

zation used in theories of instruc-

tion draw upon awealth of results

fromothe r reas of science, espe-

ology.

8

cially fromools developed in

mathe matica l economics and opera-

tionsesearch over the ast two

decades, nd it would be my pre-

diction that we will see increasingly

sophisticated heories of instruction

in the near future.

Continuingdevelopm ent of com-

puter-assistednstructionakes

possible detailed mplementation

of

specific theories in ways that would

hardlye possible in ordin ary

classrooms. The application by

Atkinson and his collabo rators that

I

mention ed earlier has this charac-

ter,and ome ofmyown work in

elementarymathematics

is

of the

same ort. In the case of the ele-

mentary-schoolathematicsro-

grams,wha t we have been able o

do 1s toeriveromlausible

qualitative assumptions a stochastic

differential quationdescribing he

trajectory of studentshroughhe

curriculum, with theonstants of

theolution of theifferential

equationorrespondingonique

para me ters of each ndividual tu-

dent Suppes,Fletcher, Zanotti,

1973). Th e fits to at a we have

achieved in this effort are abou t as

good asany

I

have ever achieved,

and

I

think we can now speak with

confidence ln this rea of stude nt

trajectories in the ame pirit hat

we speak of trajectories

s

bodies in

the olar ystem. But again,

I

em-

phasize th at this in only he begin-

ning, andheromise of future

developmentseems much more

substantial.

Economic

models. As

I haveal-

readyemarked, economists

vigorous nterest in education over

the past decade has been one of the

most alient eatures ofnew theo-

retical work in educational research.

Some of us maynot ike hinking

abo ut education as primarily an in-

vestment in humancapital,and no

doubthe concepts of economics

introduced ntodiscussions of edu-

cational policy in the past few years

are alien to man y people in educa-

tion, including agoodlynumber of

educationalesearchers.Measure-

men ts of productivity, for exam ple,

that dependmainly

on

ameasure-

ment of output that coun ts only the

number of bodies that pass through

a given do or o receive accredita-

tion rightlyaise uestions in the

minds of many of us, asdoother

measures the econom ists use, some-

times with apparentlyoo much

abandon.Moreov er, he heoretical

toolsromconomics that have

been broughto bear in the eco-

nomics of educ ation are as yet not

thoroughlyeveloped. It is too

oftenheasè thatnconomic

model or particular ducational

process actually consists of nothing

morehan an empiricalinear-

regression quation tha thas little,

if

any, theoretical justification back

of it. See , orexample, heother-

wise excellent rticles of Chiswick

Mincer, 1972, andGriliches

Mason, 1972.)

All the same, it is my feeling that

theialogue tha t has begun and

that is continuing at anaccelerated

pace between economistsndhe

broad comm unity of educational re-

searchers is an importantone for

ouriscipline. Theroadlobal

concepts that cono mists re used

to dealing with provide in many

respects a good intellectual antidote

to he overly microscopicconcerns

of educational psychology that have

dominated much of the research in

education in past decades. I do not

mean to suggest by this rem ark that

we sh ould eliminate the microscopic

research have been too dedicated

to it myself to recommend anything

of the sort ut rather to say that it

is

good to have both kinds of work

underw ay, and to have serious intel-

lectualconcentration on thebroad

picture of what is happening in our

educationalsystem.Thesometimes

mindlessuggestions of outsiders

about how priorities in education

should be reallocatedor how par-

ticular unctionsshould be reduced

is best me t not by cries of outrag e,

but by soberminded and careful in-

tellectualanalysis of ourpriorities

in allocation of resources. Eco-

nomicheory, bove ll, rovides

the ppropriateools for uch n

analysis, nd I am pleased to see

that a growing circle of educational

researchersre ecomingamiliar

with the use of these ools and are

spending a good deal of time think-

ing about theirpplications in

education.

3 Sources of

Theory

I promised earlier to exam ine the

ER


7/8

moregeneralquestio n of whether

theory in educationalesearchs

chiefly a matter

of

applying theories

developed in economics, psychol-

ogy, sociology,nthropology,nd

other sciences close in spirit to the

centralroblems of education. I

firmly believe that such applications

will continue to play a major role in

educational research as they have in

the past, but also resist the notion

that theoretica lly based work in ed-

ucational research must w ait for the

latestevelopmen ts in various

otherscientificdisciplinesbefore it

canmove orward. Oth erareas of

appliedscienceshowamuch more

complicatedand angledhistory of

interaction between the basically

appliedisciplinendheunda-

mental disciplineearest to it.

Physics is not ust applied ma the-

matics,nor is electricalengineering

just applied physics. These disci-

plines interactandmutually enrich

eachother.The ame anbe said

for education.

Inhearlieristory of this

centuryt was difficultoisen-

tanglerogress in educational

psychology fromprogress in mo re

generalxperimentalsychology,

and recently som e of the best young

economists ave laimedhe eco-

nomics of e ducatio n as the prima ry

area fconomics in which they

will develop heir fund am enta l con-

tributions.The ole of educational

researchers should be not merely to

test heoriesmad e by others,but,

when the occasion demands and the

opportunity is here, ocreate new

theories s well. Som e reas, like

the heory of instruction, seem ripe

forhis sort of development.

Another area ha t

I

like to call he

theory of talkingand istening,or

what we mightcall in more stand-

arderms,heheory of verbal

comm unication, seems ripe also for

developments pecial to education,

andI do not propose hat we wait

for inguistsand ogicians to set us

onheightheoreticalracks.

Wh at is imp ortan t is not he deci-

sion asohetherheheories

should be mad e at hom e or abroad,

but the positive decision to increase

significantly theheory-laden

character of our research.

Anotherpoint needs to be ma de

about these mat ters

of

the source

of

theory.One of theavorite eco-

nomic generalizations of our time is

that this is the age of specialization.

Not every mancando everything

equally well, as most of usknow

when faced with thebreakdown of

a television set or

a

washing rna-

chineor som e other mod ern device

ofconvenience. Thissameatti tude

ofpecializationhould beur

att i tude oward heory.Not every-

oneshouldhave the sam e gras p of

theory nor the sam e involvement in

its evelopment.Physics as long

recognized such a division of labor

between experimentaland heoreti-

cal physics, and I have come to be-

lieve that we need toencouragea

similar division in educational re-

search. Ultimately, the most impor-

tant w ork m ay be empirical, but we

need bothkinds of workers in the

vineyardnd we need variety of

training or thesevariousworkers,

not only in term s of different areas

ofeducation,butalso in term s

of

whether heir app roac h is primarily

theoreticalorexperimental. It is a

mark of he undevelopedcharacter

of current educational research that

we do not have as much division of

labor and specialization of researc h

technique a s seems desirable.

According to onepocryphal

storyboutheateohn von

Neuman n, he was asked in the early

fifties toput ogetheramaster list

of unsolvedroblems in mathe-

matics omparableoheamous

list given by Hilbertat the begin-

ning of the century. Von Neu man n

answered thate didotnow

enough about hevariousbranches

of mathe matics s they had then

developed to provide ucha list. I

shall be happy when the sam e kind

of developments are found in edu-

cationalesearch,nd when not

onlynquir ingeportersut also

colleagues across the hall recognize

that the theoretica l work in learning

theory, or theories of instruction, or

theconom ics of education,r

what ave ou,s now too ichly

developed and oo ntricate to have

more hanamateu r opinions about

it.

It is often thoughtandsaid hat

what we most need in education is

wisdom androadnderstanding

of the issues thatconfront

us.

N o t

at all , I say.What we need are

deeply structured heories in educa-

tion thatdrastically reduce, if not

elimina te, he need forwisdom.

do not wa nt wise men

to

design or

build theirplane

fly

in, but

rather technical men who under-

standheheory of aerodynam ics

andhetructuralroperties of

metal.

I

do

not want

a

banker act-

ing likea age to recommend he

measureso ontrolnflation, ut

rather an econo mist who can articu-

late a theory hat will be shown to

work nd who canmake explicit

the eason why itwork s or fails).

And so it swith ducation. Wis-

dom we need, I will admit,ut

good theories we need even more. I

want to see new generation of

trainedheoristsndnqually

competent band of experimentalists

to urround hem, nd ook for

theday when they will show that

theheories I now cherish were

merely hum ble way stations on he

road to the theoretical palaces they

have constructed.

Notes

Presldentlal address to the Arnerlcan

Educatlonal Research Assoclatlon, Chicago,

April 17, 974. Some of the research re-

ported ln this article has been supported by

National Science Foundation Grant

NSFGJ-

443x

2The most detailed expression of Dewey s

(1938) viewof scientific inquiry as problem

solving

is

to be found in hrs

Logic.

A critical,

but I think not unsympathetlc, analysis of

thw work is to be found inmy account of

Nagel s lectures on Dewey s logic (Suppes,

1969a).

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