Epistemology

Ross Woods

The nature of knowledge plays a more important role in accreditation than it would first appear; it holds a great deal of sway over what students might learn and how it might be accredited.

Hard and Soft Epistemologies

Epistemology, at least as related to program evaluation, falls roughly into two categories, which might be called "hard and "soft." Historically, the problem is a variation of the ancient philosophical tension between the one and the many.

In a "hard" epistemology, knowledge comprises a finite number of discrete units, which are impersonal, objective, and statically interrelated. Knowledge can always be wholly manifested in language. As it deals with specific, identifiable particulars, it does not claim to represent the whole of reality. Educational programs are rationally formulated, and, in its favor, this view encourages rational discussion. Unfortunately, it easily leads to extreme views such as beliefs that a linguistic representation is the same as its referent and that education and learning can be reduced to numbers and statistics.

In a "soft" epistemology, knowledge is an infinite number of nondiscrete units. Knowledge is intersubjective; it has a personal and subjective aspect; it greatly depends on the ability of people to find and examine relevant issues in a problem and to come to agreement. Relationships between units are dynamic. The content of knowledge can potentially be described in infinitely many ways, none of which should be overidentified with the referent. As a soft epistemology is not necessarily tied solely to particulars, it can claim to represent the whole of reality. Programs are formulated by negotiation between people. This view also leads to extreme beliefs such as the idea that linguistic representation is so different from its referent that it can no longer really represent it. Consequently, extremists sometimes hold that truth is ineffable.

In fact, both hard and soft views are important. For example, programs are negotiated but they should not be irrational. Language can refer adequately, but not exhaustively, to its referents although articulating knowledge accurately is not always easy. Reality consists of wholes, but language can truly refer to any particular among the wholes.

Consequently, it is better to make a bipartite model than to create an inflexible compromise. The real lesson is often to avoid the extremes, which lead to inaccuracies and irrationality. These themes occur many times and in many variations throughout this study, including concept of quality, type of curriculum, educational objectives and accreditation models.

Simple and Complex Knowledge

Picking up the themes of "hard and "soft", knowledge can be represented as either simple or complex. This somewhat overdichotomizes the extremes of each position, but it crystallizes the issue and both extremes really exist. Behaviorist education needs to solve the problem of the simplified type of knowledge it advocates, while discipline-based academia needs to make its information simple enough to make it easier to communicate.

Simple knowledge refers to the way that teachers artificially divide knowledge into pieces for didactic purposes. Each piece is a well-defined separate idea, often small, and normally expressed in its own behavioral objective which the student can master separately from other information. Students either do not need to learn component concepts in order to conceptualize it, or learn component concepts as small, discrete units.

A sharp line divides what is taught from what is not. The teacher arranges the pieces into only one rigid structure based mainly on didactic considerations. He provides all information and instructions necessary to reach his objectives but seldom provides much other literature, and especially avoids original resource materials so that students do not get lost in a maze of confusing information. His examples require students to make differentiations between examples which have only one contrasting characteristic. By limiting information to the totally known, he can predetermine all correct responses and examination answers, making evaluation very objective.

Of course, he has the best of intentions. He knows that students will master most of the material but that he cannot teach very much; consequently he only teaches basic information thoroughly. Its rigidity does not encourage the type of thinking skills as would complex information. There is little doubt that this type of information is very suitable for people without the ability to dig into a large mine of complex information. It also suits people higher on the academic ladder when sophisticated information is expressible in a "simple" form and when students need to master it. Markle (1969) is a good example of very sophisticated knowledge taught through programmed instruction; being aimed primarily at Master's level students.

Complex knowledge is rather the opposite; it is very soft. This is usually the raw material of the area of study (be it discipline, subdiscipline, or interdisciplinary field) in its natural form with its own distinct methods, assumptions, historical background, and body of literature. Complex knowledge follows the shape of the literature (standard texts, famous monographs, theses and journals), and the student who wants to survive needs to understand it and handle it skillfully.

Another form is the kind of information available from field studies (surveys and interviews), and another is bodies of professional experience and expertise. At least in Western countries, these other two forms soon get written down and take their place in the literature as separate kinds of writings.

In whichever form, the student never learns the whole of any one subject, the core of which is difficult to identify and define (or more accurately, subject to many competing definitions). It has a large periphery to which students get exposure but seldom need to master.

Concepts are larger, fewer, and more dynamic than in simple knowledge. They are defined, but each is a flux of interrelated variables, consisting of many elements and usually closely related to other concepts. Examples are seldom simple black-white differentiations. Phenomena can be justified by several competing theories or models, which the student must evaluate to defend his choice of the most appropriate. Being familiar with different models of reality, he can interpret new phenomena as fitting into different structures and hierarchies, each of which he can evaluate according to disciplinary methodology. Consequently, he is often free to structure his knowledge in any way he can justify.

Students learn to locate and utilize unrelated information in parallel fields by noticing implications and analogies, drawing inferences, developing alternative applications, and synthesizing it into very different forms. Pit Corder suggests that this is one of the main ways of using theoretical knowledge for practical purposes. (1973:143)

Students have the opportunity to travel to the frontiers of disciplinary knowledge and try some original research. As both students and teachers can be creative, students can emphasize understanding, analysis, synthesis and evaluative-critical thought. Consequently, very few examination answers can be predetermined, and evaluation rests largely on expertise and subjective judgement. Like behavior and knowledge, learning and end product are inextricably combined.

Choosing Between Simple and Complex

Which is better--the processed product or the raw material? Each most clearly has strengths and weaknesses. From a strictly pedagogical point of view, the former is largely superior. Everything is unambiguous and easy to understand, and sequenced steps make learning easier. Key ideas are crystallized in explanations, examples, and exercises which have proven their clarity in field-tests. As this approach does not necessarily imply that ideas are oversimplified, it can teach extremely difficult information very efficiently.

It can, however, tend to indoctrinate students because it predetermines what students will learn, and no author has perfectly balanced opinions. It does not favor research or analytical and critical-evaluative thought. In extreme forms, it fails to equip students with the kind of knowledge they need to teach others because students who become teachers need complex knowledge from which to derive simple knowledge. The information they learn does not closely resemble the original raw material of the discipline; it is like manufactured food pre-processed in bite-size portions. Besides, it too often lacks the strengths of complex knowledge.

Complex knowledge has its weaknesses. It is easily identified with the idea that disciplinary knowledge is a secret science for the elite. Students do not necessarily master the core information in their field of study; in fact they can bypass the intent of examiners by repeating rote-learned information. Complex knowledge defined in disciplinary terms favors almost exclusively the academic and cognitive models of curriculum; there is no clear distinction between the type of knowledge and its corresponding curriculum model.

However, it reflects more closely the heart of academia and it is no wonder that many academics prefer it. Indeed, it is academically far more honest because it reflects the subtleties and vagaries of real science. Students also spend more time on the frontier, perhaps even doing some exploring on their own, although it is not a good place for beginners. Students learn the assumptions and methodologies of their discipline and develop far more mature thinking skills.

Both have strengths and weaknesses, and some subjects can be equally well taught as either type of knowledge. In fact they overlap in some ways; flow charts and algorithms are ways of converting complex knowledge into simple knowledge. An educational program ideally takes advantage of both, a matter taken up in terms of content and functionality.

Content and Functionality

Another variation of the hard-soft theme relates particularly to defining educational quality. The content-functionality dichotomy forms a theme running through the program evaluation literature. It primarily affects the philosophy of quality and is perhaps best seen as presuppositional to the present study.

Content

Content, emphasized in the British literature, is the information, thinking skills, applied skills, and attitudes which students should learn. A content-based description of a curriculum describes what sort of things students should learn and what topics it should cover, but it avoids crystallizing content into a list of narrow, rigid objectives.

Freedman points out that many students' problem is simply that they lack information. (1987:69) Some educational systems have greatly emphasized content, but do not appear to have given equal emphasis to functionality. (Cf. e.g. Brennan, 1986:152ff)

Content emphasis has a number of concomitants. It characteristically sees learning as an end in its own right with its goals internal to the education system; they include, for example, institutional statements of mission, the goals of higher education generally, academic research, and disciplinary goals. As a result, academics can feel that ultimately all accountability should be to academics. This view is primarily ontological as it refers to the existence of knowledge, and conceives of the discipline as a whole rather than as the sum of its parts. It is epistemologically soft because it focuses on the content itself as a community of people see it. Consequently, it favors a consensus view of quality, and academic and cognitive curriculum models.

It favors program evaluation by a panel of subject matter experts who check that students have mastered their field of study but are less concerned with helpings students to assimilate their lessons. Students must take more initiative in their reading and in learning their discipline's "rules of play."

By nature, it does little to protect the interests of students against dysfunctionality.

Functionality

In contrast, the American literature gives more prominence to functionality, that is, harmony between program elements. It has two forms, both of which use internal consistency as their central criterion. In the first form, functionality refers to the extent that all parties agree to the program and implies an epistemologically softer value, that of negotiation and consensus. By including students, it checks whether they can cope with the amount they are expected to learn and the way in which it is taught, and leans toward a stakeholder view of program evaluation.

The second form of functionality is teleological; education becomes a means of reaching particular ends. Fitness for purpose is an overriding criterion, and the ends, whether academic or not, become a way to evaluate knowledge and to provide rationale and programmatic coherence. To do this, it is usual to articulate specific objectives.

For example, managerialism is really an issue of functionality. In this sense, managerialism is the idea that academics should be accountable for demonstrating to society and government that they are achieving ends useful to the whole society. Managers in educational leadership can impose managerial values on education, in contrast to the disciplinary interests of the academics themselves. Managerialists more readily see the goals of education as external to education, expressing them in terms of service to separate interest groups such as industry, government, the community, or the church, who ultimately control education. Barnett (1988a) basically fears that managers will impose a set of purposes on universities that are contrary to those of the academic community. He even goes so far as to question means-ends thinking in separating fitness from purpose. (See also Kogan, 1986:125f)

In teleological functionality (that is, functions that are directed toward definable purposes), organizational efficiency becomes important. Functional teachers are concerned about instructional effectiveness and communication skills. They write objectives and see that students achieve them, leaning towards a means-ends view of quality and program evaluation, and to both means-ends and problem-solving views of curriculum. In extreme forms, a discipline is conceived as many particulars, each of which is expressible in propositional terms (especially as objectives), the sum of which is the whole.

Dysfunctionality

Dysfunctionality is disharmony between program elements. This can take a remarkably wide variety of forms, for example:

1. Learning goals that do not fit the student population,
2. Degree definitions that do not fit employment,
3. Unwieldy or ineffective administrative services ("red tape"),
4. Unfair practices by staff or administration,
5. Excessive and unrealistic demands upon students, in terms reading loads, class-hour loads, or years to complete the program,
6. Timetable conflicts,
7. Subject matter experts who cannot communicate with students, and,
8. Program rationale might conflict with what actually happens.

Educational literature often emphasizes functionality. This is almost a tautology, because education and functionality are both largely preoccupied with communication. Kinsler uses a content-communication dichotomy to discuss the issue of content and functionality, saying that the content-based program depends on its content for motivation, and has unclear objectives and poor instructional technology. It validates programs based on tradition and gives symbolic rewards. The option, he contends, is to find motivation within the learner, have clear objectives and good instructional technology, and offer pragmatic rewards. He adds that academia has traditionally been strong on content but weak on functionality. (1981:48f)

Harrison echoes the complaint in slightly different form, complaining that programs can be top-heavy on cognitive content but weak in applied and attitudinal training. (N.d.:12) Pomerville suggests that excessive orientation to content is not in students' best interests because it does not focus on what kind of people students will become or what they will be able to do. (1973:57) Harrison's and Pomerville's opinions reveal underlying views on tensions between curriculum models, identifying some models with content and others with functionality.

Dressel brings up the issue when discussing educational objectives. If a program has neither objectives nor concern for utility, it focuses only on content as both its means and its ends. On the other hand, too many objectives draw attention away from content. Dressel concludes that a small number of clear objectives is better for both teacher and learner. Kells (1986:146) also mentions Campbell's (1977) suggestion of a model based on outcome testing and analysis of function.

Roles of Content and Functionality

Both content and functionality have an important role to play in program evaluation. Content-based evaluation compares what it is that students learn with expert knowledge of the field of study, something that pure functionality cannot do. Consequently, content lends itself to a softer epistemology; it sees knowledge as softer, being more complex and less easy to reduce to objectives. Schools can improve by making culture-dependent programs more indigenous, by planning and administrating them better, and providing better materials.

Schools can be strong in one and weak in the other. Well-organized schools can be highly functional but low on content, imparting relatively little of it to their students. Similarly, prestigious schools can become quite dysfunctional even when they remain strong on content. Barnett mentions the common problem of schools overloading students with information and instigating repressive assessment regimes. (1988a:105) Their lack of functionality is a major argument against giving them full autonomy for maintaining their own standards.

Neither content nor functionality is easy to define operationally and a perfect balance is elusive. In fact, they are not completely separable; Tyler used content to derive objectives for a means-ends system (1949:25ff) and consensus groups make decisions on content. The simple solution is to accept that both are indispensable; a significant lack of either is a major educational disaster. Ideally, schools will have high levels of both content and functionality because students need to master their fields of study and schools need to be well-run.

Standards and Systems

In a similar way, content and functionality parallel another dichotomy. Content is like educational standards, and functionality is like school systems, such as the kind of school and its delivery and evaluation systems. In this sense, standards and systems are best kept sharply differentiated, and it is more accurate to evaluate each on their own merits.

It is all too easy to presume that traditional education has high standards and nontraditional education has low standards, simply because their systems appear very different. It is also true that "traditional" delivery systems can have very low standards, and that some procedures are inherently wrong. That is, traditional systems alone do not guarantee high standards, and non-traditional systems can still maintain high standards. For example, it is valid in principle to give degrees solely on the basis of assessment, but an assessment degree program needs high standards to maintain credibility. One of the lessons of London University is that the public accepts a radically nontraditional program if its standards are very high. Some degree mills use the same delivery system as some major universities (for example, they might both be extension research institutes) but the standards and procedures are very different.

A view of program quality and evaluation, then, needs to account for both issues of content and functionality, and differentiate between standards and systems.