I spoke at length about this idea with Rachel and Dorothy this morning, so maybe they can add to this discussion. I was thinking about the Rogers stuff that I’m feeling totally connected to, and I remembered a paper that I read a few years ago about comparing the effectiveness of different instructional styles (in Tutorials). (I’m linking to the paper here: Koenig, Endorf, Braun teaching methods paper.) I thought it would be interesting to try to do something like this with teaching styles along a “Rogerian spectrum” – from teaching that is aligned with the Rogerian perspective to teaching that is misaligned. Then there could be qualitative and quantitative assessments of learning for each class, and we could compare…
After the conversation with Rachel, I think what I’m really saying is that I’m still fuzzy on how to assess whether learning has taken place, and I want to see that happen for teaching "along the Rogerian spectrum." (As in, this is something that has been on my mind for a week – not just in relationship to Rogerian discourse, but in general.) Is it necessary to have both quantitative and qualitative measures? Is it necessary to show that using an instructional method/theoretical framework for relating is more effective than not using the method/framework, or is it enough to show that use of the method/framework was productive? (But, then, how is productive defined?) Rachel pointed out that Rogers defined ways of assessing learning in his book, which I have not yet read (am feeling more and more excited to do so).
I suppose this has turned into a little bit of philosophical musing on my part, but I wanted to post the paper and my idea for reference in future conversations, and I want to keep thinking about this in relationship to Rogers’ framework.
I think you're so right that the question of what we mean by "effectiveness" is going to make all the difference. Would we expect Rogerian discourse to change somebody's FCI score? Maybe? And then separately from that, of all the things we might pursue documenting, is FCI score an effect we would want to prioritize?
ReplyDeleteI'd love to talk about this more because it is fascinating. On the one hand, there might be a subset of assessments that are particularly relevant (? - I'm struggling to choose words) and get prioritized for that reason. On the other hand, it would be interesting to pick a diverse set of assessments (like an FCI score, something on the other end of the qualitative/quantitative spectrum, etc.), which might give a sense for the breadth of arenas that this kind of powerful instruction touches.
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