I am pleased to introduce my current work on how we conceive of ‘analysis’, how this conception impacts the way we write a curriculum, and thus how we teach students to analyse. This is my second paper to go through peer-review for publication by the academic journal English In Education. The first draft of this new paper was well received at peer-review:
I have no problems in recommending this to English In Education. It is definitely of interest to readers, is well-informed and thought provoking. The questioning of the dominant taxonomies and the defamiliarizing of terms like ‘analysis’ were particularly interesting… (Reviewers are anon)
And so it is my pleasure to introduce the topic as it stands so far.
The paper in abstract:
Reconceptualising The Act Of Analysis As The Transformation Of Material And Methodological Knowledge
Models of the cognitive domain, including Bloom’s taxonomy and Anderson and Krathwohl’s 2001 revision, have shaped educational definitions of analysis since the 1950s, and continue to be dominant in curriculum today. However, taxonomical models are not without their limitations. Bloom’s concept of taxonomical levels as a sequence are criticised as failing to recognise the ‘global activity’ of each level. The taxonomy is taken as the priority of the domain, yet modern perspectives prioritise knowledge. Analysis is also framed no merely as applying to cognition, but more widely to mechanical operations too – analysis is undertaken by experts of any field. So, to better understand ‘analysis’, we need a framework that incorporates knowledge, expertise, and distinguishes between taxonomy or global activity.
The paper explores how explanations of analysis must contain knowledge, as described by modern pedagogy. Knowledge strands do exist within taxonomies, but often only in implied or covert ways, such as Bloom’s Material and Methodological strands. Many more recent pedagogies make much more explicit and overt the significance similar strands of knowledge;
- Material – the structure, substantive, phenomena, mode, stance, ‘what’,
- Methodologies – some mode of inquiry, syntactic, structure, strategy, text, ‘how’.
Analysis can therefor be expressed as the synthesis of two independent knowledge strands, both of which are required to reach a level of ‘expertise’ able to undertake analytical processes.
Within the proposed framework, analysis is a mindset rather than a procedural step – it accepts that ‘analytical thinking’ is global to a process. Therefore, it is argued that analysis does not fit well as a taxonomical level and is removed entirely – the framework is the mindset of anlysis. In its place is positioned a new intermediate level transformation (the deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge towards a specified end-state). This adaptation to the stages of a taxonomy make it much clearer why analytical thinking is an iterative sequence, as originally proposed by Bloom. And so the framework gets to have its cake and eat it – analysis is a global act, and the levels expressed within remain taxonomical.
The paper also adopts the assertion that analysis is an emergent property of substantive and material knowledge – analysis is not a procedure to teach but the outcome of a way-of-thinking when enough knowledge is being properly synthesised. The pedagogy prioritises not the teaching of analysis, but the teaching of knowledge that provides the nutrients from which analysis emerges. This disposes of the idea that scaffolds like PEE, PEAL, What How Why and Squid can ever lead to true analytical expression.
The above findings propose a new conception of analysis, and asserts:
Analysis is an emergent mindset that synthesizes two strands of knowledge, methodological and material, opportuning some desirable end state achieved through the transformation of one or other knowledge; Methodologies are capable of transforming our understanding of material in ways that a lay-reader would be unable to access (and visa versa); knowledge of material and methodologies have a transformative power over our mindset. The outcome of synthesizing knowledge successfully is measured on a taxonomy of skill, which is itself iterative.
This can be presented graphically, as a table, just like Anderson and Krathwohl’s dual strand taxonomy. Instead of one knowledge strand being expressed on one axis, with the taxonomy the second axis, the table positions methodological and material knowledge as x and y axis (which I will reproduce in this blog after publication). Each knowledge strand can be develop by the student asymmetrically – we can develop knowledge in one or both directions. This knowledge is should be synthesised, and in so doing moves through the adapted Bloomian taxonomy. So three languages exist; the methodological, the material, and the taxonomical on the one table. This becomes the Analytical Framework, a highly adapted version of Bloom’s work which incorporates modern conceptions of analysis as the synthesis of knowledge, as global, as iterative and as a domain of expertise.
When using the framework for evaluation of student outcomes, colour coding can be used to highlight what the student has achieved, visually demonstrating why some student responses fail to be adequately ‘analytical’. This visual representation of the student’s outcome only has a limited number of variations – there are only so many shapes that can be coloured onto the framework. There are then only a limited range of feedback, and proposed solutions. The framework becomes a description of attainment, and the feedback is prescribed as a type of solution. The solutions are ultimately for the curriculum, as student outcomes are really a curriculum outcome. The shape that feedback takes upon the framework is a recommendation to how the curriculum must adapt.
Whilst the framework is intended to explain why English Literature sometimes fails to progress students, particularly when PEE-esk writing scaffolds are in use, it is highly applicable to other knowledge-based disciplines. We can see this applicability through the common structure of high-mark questions; they all imply both a methodological and a material knowledge needed. Analytical Framework applies to any area of expertise, even in mechanical circumstances – and so redacting the name ‘cognitive domain’ makes the applicability of Analytical Framework far broader than just ‘thinking problems’.
Peer review is a drafting process, and I was left with many areas to revise, which having been done is now back with the reviewer. I hope this edit continues to impress and reach publication, and if it does, I look forward to sharing the full paper.