Research: Science and Education
Addressing the Philosophical Confusion Regarding Constructivism in Chemical Education Pedro J. Bernal Department of Chemistry, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, 32789;
[email protected] In the May 2003 issue of this Journal, Eric Scerri wrote a commentary on what he regards as a philosophical confusion in the work of constructivist chemical education researchers (1). Scerri further elaborated his arguments in a paper published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2). This is an important issue that science educators should attend to because, as D. C. Phillips has noted, constructivism is today “arguably the dominant theoretical position in science and mathematics education” (3). The various doctrines that come under the label “constructivism” have had a dramatic curricular influence. What science educators believe about the way science is learned and about the nature of scientific knowledge very much affects the practice of science and how science is taught. At times, we tend to regard these issues as philosophical debates without practical consequences, yet they do have profound practical implications. Consider, for instance, the pedagogical effects of accepting the notion that reason and evidence play no role in determining the validity of scientific theories, or of adopting a relativism that claims that no distinction can be made between science and non-sense. It is true that not all constructivist perspectives are committed to these views, but some are, which makes philosophical clarification both crucial and urgent. What I would like to do here is to join Eric Scerri in pointing out that the implications of constructivism to chemical education are in need of philosophical clarification and to offer some thoughts that may further the conversation. Philosophical Confusion Regarding Constructivism Where does the confusion come from? The contention is that the term constructivism is being used in two different senses (1). Speaking about the use of the term constructivism in chemical education, here is how Scerri puts it: I can only surmise that the term constructivism is being used in a quite different sense of psychological or pedagogical constructivism rather than the philosophical or social constructivism often associated with Thomas Kuhn and others.
Why is that surprising? Psychological and social constructivism are distinct notions that emerged from different intellectual traditions (3). I want to talk a bit about these concepts and the traditions from which they emerge in order to show how they differ. Basic Definitions
Tenets of Psychological Constructivism Psychological constructivism is a theory about the way that individuals learn. It is basically a claim about what goes
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on in the mind of the learner. This is the kind of constructivism used in educational circles. In my view, the pedagogical strategies recommended by a psychological constructivist approach make it attractive to chemical educators.
Tenets of Social Constructivism Social constructivism is the radical assertion that the actual content of scientific theories is determined by social factors. It is not at all concerned with how people learn or with what goes on in the mind. It is not interested in cognitive psychology but in the sociology of knowledge. It is important to understand that the claim is not that social factors affect the conduct of science or that particular events can affect the direction of scientific research. That is evident enough. Is anyone willing to argue that the development of the atomic bomb would not have been different if World War II had not occurred? The claim of social constructivism is the much more radical one that the content of the theory of nuclear fission, to stay with the example, is determined by social factors. Two Different Intellectual Traditions in Constructivism That we are dealing with two distinct intellectual traditions is made manifest if we look at the names of those that have made significant contributions to these respective fields and the issues that they have been concerned with. It is not my intention here to provide details but simply to note that while sharing a name these are different notions.
Psychological Constructivism Theorists There are different kinds of psychological constructivism. Not all make the same claims yet they all share a concern with what goes on in the mind of the learner. The different types of psychological constructivism appear in the literature under a number of different labels; among them pedagogical, personal, radical, and social. The significant contributors here are Jean Piaget, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Lev Vigotsky, and George Kelly, among many others. The influence of constructivism among chemical educators can be traced to the influence of Piaget on Dudley Herron (4) and to the work of George Bodner starting with his 1986 paper in this Journal (5). Notice that there is a kind of psychological constructivism called “social”. How is it related to social constructivism? Psychological “social” constructivism is interested on how social factors affect what goes on in the mind of the learner, while social constructivism is interested on how social factors come to determine the actual content of scientific theories: social constructivism makes no reference to the cognitive aspects of that process.
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Research: Science and Education
Social Constructivism Theorists As a significant intellectual movement, social constructivism dates back to the mid-1970s when David Bloor initiated the Strong Program in the Sociology of Knowledge, which has been known ever since as SSK (6). The claim of this movement, as stated above, is that the actual content of scientific theories is determined by social factors and not by evidence and reason. Some of the representatives of social constructivism are Andrew Pickering, David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Bruno Latour, Steve Woolgar, Harry Collins, Trevor Pinch, and Steven Shapin, among others. These brief comments, which without question oversimplify, should be sufficient to point out that while sharing a name, psychological and social constructivism are two distinct notions. What Is the Problem? If we are talking about different intellectual traditions does that mean that the confusion pointed out by Eric Scerri does not exist? No, the confusion is real, although it is not so much the result of using the word constructivism in two different senses. Matthews has pointed out (7) that the term constructivism has been used to denote at least eight different areas that range from a theory of cognition to a worldview. The confusion that concerns us as science educators results not from using the term in different senses; rather, the philosophical confusion stems from the tendency of educational constructivists to go from psychological claims about the way knowledge is acquired to epistemological conclusions about what can be known. As Matthews has also noted (7), arguing from the psychological premise, “the mind is active in knowledge acquisition” to the epistemological conclusion “we cannot know reality” is a common pedagogical constructivist move. The constructivist argument is that because the mind is actively engaged in the construction of knowledge, each individual develops his or her own set of unique notions or ideas. It follows that a correspondence between ideas and a subjectindependent reality is not possible. The assumption, however, that such a correspondence between ideas and reality is necessary for knowledge is itself an empiricist epistemological position that one is not required to hold. If one does not, the recognition that the mind is active in the construction of knowledge need not lead to the conclusion that reality is unknowable. If that is the case, then, educators who find constructivist pedagogical strategies useful can simply use them. Those that want to make epistemological claims, such as the assertion that reality is unknowable, need to make sure that they are consistent with a conception of scientific knowledge that they are willing to hold. Use of Philosophical Terms Eric Scerri also noted (1, 2) that there are terms like relativism, objectivism, realism, behaviorism, and positivism that are misrepresented in the chemical education literature and he offered a number of examples. In that he is right—careful, thoughtful use of these terms would go a long way toward
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dispelling the confusion. However, I want to briefly mention realism, because the issue here is not about realism and anti-realism. There are non-realist positions (such as instrumentalism) that no one would equate with either social constructivism or with hostility to science. There is a sense in which realism has no dog in this fight. As James Robert Brown pointed out in his wonderful Who Rules in Science: An Opinionated Guide to the Wars (8), the issue is not realism, it is objectivity. Social constructivism denies the possibility of objectivity. The question to ask in order to understand the claims of psychological constructivism is this: What kind of objectivity, if any, does it deny? If psychological constructivism is an instrumentalist position, as Bodner asserts (5), we can begin to get an answer. Instrumentalists are anti-realists yet believe that reason and evidence decide which theories are accepted or rejected. No social constructivist agrees with that. How Useful Is the Science Wars Metaphor in This Case? In his commentary, Eric Scerri places the confusion in chemical education research in the context of the science wars, which have received a lot of attention particularly since the Sokal affair in 1996 (9, 10). He argues that some chemical constructivists are, in effect, consorting with the enemy— albeit unwillingly. While the claim is tenable to some extent, it seems to me that this is not a useful metaphor to understand what is going on in the field of chemical education research. One of the characteristics of the social constructivist claims in the science wars is a desire to bring science down from the epistemic pedestal that, in the view of most social constructivists, it currently occupies. They tend to see science as an ideology that they have a duty to unmask. I have never met a science educator who shares those attitudes. Among the chemical educators I know there isn’t a whiff of postmodern irony. Instead, I think that there is an attraction on the part of chemical educators to the pedagogical prescriptions of constructivism, combined with a perhaps less than adequate analysis of the epistemological consequences that such a theoretical stance can entail. What we need, desperately, is philosophical clarification, not shooting. Conclusion To conclude, I want to return to the confusion. Here, again, is Eric Scerri (2): Part of the problem, as I argue, is a failure to distinguish between pedagogical constructivism regarding students’ understanding of science, and constructivism about the way that scientific knowledge is acquired by expert scientists.
The problem is not about knowledge acquisition by expert scientists versus students. The problem is that chemical educators often disregard the critical distiction between pedagogical constructivism—which is interested in how individuals learn (experts or otherwise)—and social constructivism, which is not interested in knowledge acquisition at all. The
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real issue is the mixing of psychological premises with epistemological assertions that do not, necessarily, follow. Eric Scerri has done us all a favor, yet again, by pointing out that the work of constructivist chemical education researchers needs philosophical clarification: research grounded in clearly understood premises with theoretically consistent epistemological conclusions. Literature Cited 1. Scerri, E. R. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 468–477. 2. Scerri, E. R. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 2003, 988, 359–369. 3. Phillips, D.C. An Opinionated Account of the Constructivist Landscape. In Constructivism in Education, Phillips, D. C., Ed.; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2000; pp 1–16.
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4. Herron, J. D. J. Chem. Educ. 1975, 52, 146–150. 5. Bodner, G. M. J. Chem. Educ. 1986, 63, 873–877. 6. Bloor, D. Knowledge and Social Imagery; Routledge & K. Paul: London, UK, 1976. 7. Matthews, M. R. Appraising Constructivism in Science and Mathematics Education. In Constructivism in Education, Phillips, D. C., Ed.; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2000; pp 161–192. 8. Brown, J. R. Who Rules in Science: An Opinionated Guide to the Wars; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2001. 9. Sokal, A. Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. Social Text 1996, 46– 47, 217–252. 10. Sokal, A. A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies. Lingua Franca 1996, 6, 62–64.
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