Criteria of excellence for geological inquiry: The necessity of ambiguity

Abstract

According to Gowin, a curriculum properly derives its authority by representing the "criteria of excellence" for evaluating the claims produced within a field of inquiry. Gowin's epistemology applied to examples from geological inquiry yields criteria of excellence responsive to the demands characteristic of geological problems. Student efforts to learn these criteria hold the promise of making progress toward independence in accessing, using, and evaluating knowledge. This understanding contributes to the reformation of the concept of inquiry as a "step beyond science as process" called for in the National Science Education Standards and reinforces the need to consider the diversity as well as unity of styles of scientific reasoning. Geological inquiries differ from those of other sciences because they refer to objects with histories. These histories create a demand for concepts that necessarily contain an irreducible element of ambiguity, thus permitting comparison and contrast of geological objects. A case study of how geologists apply analogies, impose boundaries on categories of thought, and constrain the ambiguity of key concepts in reasoning about the accumulation of sediments at a continental margin is used to support this argument. Such examples of geological reasoning support a skeptical attitude toward interdisciplinary curricula that omit or oversimplify criteria of excellence.

Characteristics of abductive inquiry in earth science: An undergraduate case study

“…Deduction is the inferential method employed to provide such formal, nomological explanations. The same type of scientific explanations, however, cannot be applied directly in earth science because earth scientific inquiry often includes retrodictive or postdictive problems (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kitts, 1978;Kleinhans et al, 2005;Schumm, 1991). Abduction is a backward-directed inference, which proceeds from an effect to a cause and best suited for solving retrodictive/postdictive problems of earth science.…”

“…A promising way to help students appropriate disciplinary knowledge and methods is to engage them in domain-specific inquiry. Abductive inquiry is specialized in the domain of earth science, and it characterizes the discipline as a historical and interpretive science (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kleinhans et al, 2005). More opportunities of abductive inquiry should thus be given for students to learn earth science meaningfully by exercising the mode of reasoning similar to what professional earth scientists are actually engaged in.…”

Characteristics of abductive inquiry in earth science: An undergraduate case study

“…Deduction is the inferential method employed to provide such formal, nomological explanations. The same type of scientific explanations, however, cannot be applied directly in earth science because earth scientific inquiry often includes retrodictive or postdictive problems (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kitts, 1978;Kleinhans et al, 2005;Schumm, 1991). Abduction is a backward-directed inference, which proceeds from an effect to a cause and best suited for solving retrodictive/postdictive problems of earth science.…”

“…A promising way to help students appropriate disciplinary knowledge and methods is to engage them in domain-specific inquiry. Abductive inquiry is specialized in the domain of earth science, and it characterizes the discipline as a historical and interpretive science (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kleinhans et al, 2005). More opportunities of abductive inquiry should thus be given for students to learn earth science meaningfully by exercising the mode of reasoning similar to what professional earth scientists are actually engaged in.…”

Geoscience and geoscientists: Uniquely equipped to study Earth

“…These methods for hypothesis testing are aligned with those put forward by Ault (1998) for geology, which argue that a strong hypothesis must hold true across multiple cases 1 while explaining the differences among cases. Further, they must hold across spatial and temporal scales, and be verifi ed by independent converging lines of evidence.…”

The challenges of observing geologically: Third graders' descriptions of rock and mineral properties

“…Research from this developmental perspective shows that at around ages 7 -8 (the approximate age of the third graders in this study) children can sort materials based on single properties, and are beginning to distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic properties of materials (Krnel, Glazar, & Watson, 2003). However, this work tells us only about children's generic understandings of concepts such as property and pattern, not about their capabilities of observation based on a given content area, which frames the concept of property in discipline-specific ways (Schwab, 1962;Ault, 1998). Metz (1995Metz ( , 1997Metz ( , 2004 states the fallacies in the strictly developmental argument: that it is theoretically not congruent with a close reading of developmental research, that the research grounding these claims is conducted primarily in laboratory settings, not in instructional contexts, and that there is a growing body of empirical research in education that shows that children are capable of engaging in "whole-cloth scientific inquiry" at an early age (Metz, 2004, p. 222).…”

Characteristics of abductive inquiry in earth science: An undergraduate case study

“…Deduction is the inferential method employed to provide such formal, nomological explanations. The same type of scientific explanations, however, cannot be applied directly in earth science because earth scientific inquiry often includes retrodictive or postdictive problems (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kitts, 1978;Kleinhans et al, 2005;Schumm, 1991). Abduction is a backward-directed inference, which proceeds from an effect to a cause and best suited for solving retrodictive/postdictive problems of earth science.…”

“…A promising way to help students appropriate disciplinary knowledge and methods is to engage them in domain-specific inquiry. Abductive inquiry is specialized in the domain of earth science, and it characterizes the discipline as a historical and interpretive science (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kleinhans et al, 2005). More opportunities of abductive inquiry should thus be given for students to learn earth science meaningfully by exercising the mode of reasoning similar to what professional earth scientists are actually engaged in.…”

Geoscience and geoscientists: Uniquely equipped to study Earth

“…These methods for hypothesis testing are aligned with those put forward by Ault (1998) for geology, which argue that a strong hypothesis must hold true across multiple cases 1 while explaining the differences among cases. Further, they must hold across spatial and temporal scales, and be verifi ed by independent converging lines of evidence.…”

The challenges of observing geologically: Third graders' descriptions of rock and mineral properties

“…Research from this developmental perspective shows that at around ages 7 -8 (the approximate age of the third graders in this study) children can sort materials based on single properties, and are beginning to distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic properties of materials (Krnel, Glazar, & Watson, 2003). However, this work tells us only about children's generic understandings of concepts such as property and pattern, not about their capabilities of observation based on a given content area, which frames the concept of property in discipline-specific ways (Schwab, 1962;Ault, 1998). Metz (1995Metz ( , 1997Metz ( , 2004 states the fallacies in the strictly developmental argument: that it is theoretically not congruent with a close reading of developmental research, that the research grounding these claims is conducted primarily in laboratory settings, not in instructional contexts, and that there is a growing body of empirical research in education that shows that children are capable of engaging in "whole-cloth scientific inquiry" at an early age (Metz, 2004, p. 222).…”

Characteristics of abductive inquiry in earth science: An undergraduate case study

“…Deduction is the inferential method employed to provide such formal, nomological explanations. The same type of scientific explanations, however, cannot be applied directly in earth science because earth scientific inquiry often includes retrodictive or postdictive problems (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kitts, 1978;Kleinhans et al, 2005;Schumm, 1991). Abduction is a backward-directed inference, which proceeds from an effect to a cause and best suited for solving retrodictive/postdictive problems of earth science.…”

“…A promising way to help students appropriate disciplinary knowledge and methods is to engage them in domain-specific inquiry. Abductive inquiry is specialized in the domain of earth science, and it characterizes the discipline as a historical and interpretive science (Ault, 1998;Baker, 1996Baker, , 2000Dodick & Orion, 2003;Engelhardt & Zimmermann, 1988;Frodeman, 1995;Kleinhans et al, 2005). More opportunities of abductive inquiry should thus be given for students to learn earth science meaningfully by exercising the mode of reasoning similar to what professional earth scientists are actually engaged in.…”

Geoscience and geoscientists: Uniquely equipped to study Earth

“…These methods for hypothesis testing are aligned with those put forward by Ault (1998) for geology, which argue that a strong hypothesis must hold true across multiple cases 1 while explaining the differences among cases. Further, they must hold across spatial and temporal scales, and be verifi ed by independent converging lines of evidence.…”

The challenges of observing geologically: Third graders' descriptions of rock and mineral properties

“…Research from this developmental perspective shows that at around ages 7 -8 (the approximate age of the third graders in this study) children can sort materials based on single properties, and are beginning to distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic properties of materials (Krnel, Glazar, & Watson, 2003). However, this work tells us only about children's generic understandings of concepts such as property and pattern, not about their capabilities of observation based on a given content area, which frames the concept of property in discipline-specific ways (Schwab, 1962;Ault, 1998). Metz (1995Metz ( , 1997Metz ( , 2004 states the fallacies in the strictly developmental argument: that it is theoretically not congruent with a close reading of developmental research, that the research grounding these claims is conducted primarily in laboratory settings, not in instructional contexts, and that there is a growing body of empirical research in education that shows that children are capable of engaging in "whole-cloth scientific inquiry" at an early age (Metz, 2004, p. 222).…”