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Matthijs Koopmans
Dimitrios Stamovlasis Editors

Complex
Dynamical
Systems in
Education
Concepts, Methods and Applications
Complex Dynamical Systems in Education
Matthijs Koopmans • Dimitrios Stamovlasis
Editors

Complex Dynamical Systems

in Education
Concepts, Methods and Applications
Editors
Matthijs Koopmans Dimitrios Stamovlasis
School of Education Department of Philosophy and Education
Mercy College Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Dobbs Ferry, NY, USA Thessaloniki, Greece

ISBN 978-3-319-27575-8 ISBN 978-3-319-27577-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27577-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931314

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Preface

Welcome to Complex Dynamical Systems in Education: Concepts, Methods and

Applications. The application of the principles of complexity and dynamical sys-
tems in the social and behavioral sciences is a relatively new development, whose
relevance to the field of education is only beginning to be appreciated. This book
aims to further stimulate this advancement.
As our target audience, we see educational researchers as well as practitioners
and policy-makers who take an active interest in the interface between educational
research and their own practical work. The book appeals to their relatively sophis-
ticated understanding of the complex interface between research, practice, and
policy that motivates much of the current conventional research (and funding
thereof). Our intended audience also includes scholars working in disciplines
other than education who may take an interest in how, specifically, the complex
dynamical systems paradigm that they know applies to the field of education in
particular.
The book has the appropriate level of discourse to be used in graduate and
advanced undergraduate educational research courses, particularly courses aiming
to reflect the methodological diversity that currently exists in the field, or courses
that seek alternative approaches to the convention of presenting experimental and
quasi-experimental designs as the sole vehicle for legitimate causal inference in
education.
The text assumes a readiness among its readership to engage in the substantive
and methodological issues that present themselves when a complexity perspective
is taken, but, contrary to quite a few other complex dynamical texts, will not require
high level mathematical skills. We take pleasure in presenting these chapters to you
and hope that they result in a fuller awareness of what the complex dynamical
systems paradigm has to offer to the field.

Dobbs Ferry, NY, USA Matthijs Koopmans

Thessaloniki, Greece Dimitrios Stamovlasis

v
Contents

1 Introduction to Education as a Complex

Dynamical System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Matthijs Koopmans and Dimitrios Stamovlasis
2 Re-searching Methods in Educational Research:
A Transdisciplinary Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
M. Jayne Fleener
3 A Batesonian Perspective on Qualitative Research
and Complex Human Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Jeffrey W. Bloom
4 Emergence, Self-Transcendence, and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Jeffrey Goldstein
5 Opening the Wondrous World of the Possible for
Education: A Generative Complexity Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Ton J€
org
6 Towards the Teaching of Motor Skills as a System
of Growing Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Umberto Cesar Corrêa, Walter Roberto Correia, and Go Tani
7 The Fractal Dynamics of Early Childhood Play
Development and Nonlinear Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Doris Pronin Fromberg
8 Ergodicity and the Merits of the Single Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Matthijs Koopmans
9 Catastrophe Theory: Methodology, Epistemology,
and Applications in Learning Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Dimitrios Stamovlasis

vii
viii Contents

10 Evaluating Complex Educational Systems with

Quadratic Assignment Problem and Exponential
Random Graph Model Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Russ Marion and Craig Schreiber
11 “Looking at” Educational Interventions: Surplus
Value of a Complex Dynamic Systems Approach to
Study the Effectiveness of a Science and Technology
Educational Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Sabine van Vondel, Henderien Steenbeek,
Marijn van Dijk, and Paul van Geert
12 Analyzing Teacher–Student Interactions
with State Space Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Helena J.M. Pennings and Tim Mainhard
13 Nonlinear Dynamical Interaction Patterns in
Collaborative Groups: Discourse Analysis with
Orbital Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Dimitrios Stamovlasis
14 Investigating the Long Memory Process in Daily
High School Attendance Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Matthijs Koopmans
15 Educational Systems and the Intergenerational
Transmission of Inequality: A Complex Dynamical
Systems Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Porfirio Guevara and Emilio Porta
16 The Symbolic Dynamics of Visual Attention
During Learning: Exploring the Application of
Orbital Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Joanna K. Garner and Daniel M. Russell
17 A Catastrophe Model for Motivation and Emotions:
Highlighting the Synergistic Role of Performance-
Approach and Performance-Avoidance Goal Orientations . . . . . . . 379
Georgios Sideridis and Dimitrios Stamovlasis

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
About the Contributors

Jeffrey W. Bloom is Professor Emeritus, Northern Arizona University. His spe-

cialties have been situated in science education and curriculum studies, with
particular interests in the complexity sciences, qualitative research, children’s
learning and discourse, and teaching within communities of inquiry. E-mail:
[email protected].

Umberto Cesar Corrêa is a professor at the School of Physical Education and

Sport, University of S~ao Paulo, and member of the Motor Behavior Laboratory for
16 years. He earned his undergraduate degree in Physical Education, Universidade
de Mogi das Cruzes (1990); Certification in Gymnastics, Universidade de Mogi das
Cruzes (1992); Certification in Sport Sciences, Universidade de Educaç~ao e Cultura
do ABC (1993); Master’s degree in Motricity Sciences, Universidade Estadual
Paulista (1996); Ph.D. in Physical Education, Universidade de S~ao Paulo (2001);
and did Postdoctoral work at Queensland University of Technology (2011). His
research interest is on motor skill learning and teaching of physical education for
adolescents. He has investigated themes as practice schedule, feedback, instruction/
cues, specificity and complexity of task, and ecological validity. He has been
interested in understanding motor skill in physical education and sport contexts
from an adaptive complex systems perspective. E-mail: [email protected].

Walter Roberto Correia is a professor at the School of Physical Education and

Sport of the University of S~ao Paulo for 10 years. He earned his undergraduate
degree in Physical Education at the Faculdade de Educaç~ao Fı́sica de Santo André
(1987); pedagogy, Universidade S~ao Marcos (1992), certificate in School Physica
Education, Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes (1992); certificate in Sport Sciences,
Faculdade de Educaç~ao Fı́sica de Santo André (1994); a master’s degree in Physical
Education, Universidade de S~ao Paulo (1999); Ph.D. in Education/Curriculum,
Pontifı́cia Universidade Catolica de S~ao Paulo (2005); Training in Psychoanalysis,
Psychoanalytic Studies Center (2010); Qualified Master of Ving Tsun/Kung Fu,
Moy Yat Ving Tsun International Federation (2010). E-mail: [email protected].

ix
x About the Contributors

M.Jayne Fleener is currently the Dean of the College of Education at North

Carolina State University. She has over 30 years of professional experience in
K-12 and higher education, including teaching high school mathematics and com-
puter science in North Carolina and serving as Associate Dean for Research and
Graduate Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Dean at Louisiana State
University. She has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in philosophy
and three graduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
including her Ph.D. in mathematics education. Her teaching and research have been
in the areas of philosophy, computer science, mathematics, mathematics education,
gender issues in mathematics and engineering, educational research and policy, and
curriculum theory. She has over 100 publications, including her books Curriculum
Dynamics: Recreating Heart and Chaos, Complexity, Curriculum, and Culture: A
Conversation (edited, with others). Both books have been translated into Chinese.
She has also participated in funded research in the areas of mathematics education,
technology integration, gender studies, teacher professional development, interna-
tionalization of teacher education, and high school students’ preparation and read-
iness for college and post-secondary experiences. E-mail: [email protected].

Doris Pronin Fromberg is Professor Emerita and has served as chairperson of the
Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University. She served as a
teacher and administrator in public and private schools as well as director of
Teacher Corps projects. She is past president of the National Association of Early
Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE), and has chaired the Special Interest
Group on Early Education and Child Development of the American Educational
Research Association as well as the Special Study Group on Elementary Education
of the American Association of Colleges of Education. She was recipient of the
Early Childhood Teacher of the Educator Award from NAECTE/Allyn & Bacon
and the NYSNAEYC Champion for Children Leader Award. She serves on the
NYS Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, the Defending the Early
Years Advisory Board, and the editorial boards of professional publications.
Among her publications are The All-Day Kindergarten and Pre-K Curriculum: A
Dynamic Themes Approach (Routledge, 2012); Play and Meaning in Early Child-
hood Education (Allyn & Bacon, 2002); Play from Birth to Twelve (co-edited with
D. Bergen, Routledge, 2015); and The Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Education
(co-edited with L.R. Williams, Garland, 1992). She presented a 2012 TEDx talk:
“Kindergarten Today: Is the Match between High-stakes Outputs and Low-impact
Inputs Cost-effective?” She is an advocate for high-quality early childhood educa-
tion, early childhood teacher education, and early childhood administrator educa-
tion; and consideration for the dynamic nature of learning and education. E-mail:
[email protected].

Joanna K. Garner is Associate Director of Program Development and a Research

Associate Professor at the Center for Educational Partnerships, Old Dominion
University. Her professional training includes a B.Sc. (Hons.) Psychology and
About the Contributors xi

M. Phil. in Psychology from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, and a Ph.D.
in Educational Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Garner’s
research interests focus on the translational space between theory and practice,
spanning concepts and theories in teachers’ and students’ learning and motivation.
Her recent work on the relations between executive function and self-regulated
learning, and the relations between teachers’ learning and professional develop-
ment, is framed by concepts and methods drawn from assumptions of dynamical
systems theory. E-mail: [email protected].

Jeffrey A. Goldstein is Full Professor, Adelphi University; author/editor of

numerous books and papers including Complexity and the Nexus of Leadership:
Leveraging Nonlinear Science to Create Ecologies of Innovation; Complexity
Science and Social Entrepreneurship: Adding Social Value through Systems Think-
ing; Complex Systems Leadership Theory; Classic Complexity; Emergence—
Annual Volumes; The Unshackled Organization; and Brainwaves. Co-editor-in-
chief of the journal Emergence: Complexity and Organization (since 2004);
Board of Trustees of the journal Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and the Life
Sciences; Workshop and Seminar Leader and Lecturing at eminent universities in
countries throughout the world including England, Canada, Russia, Israel, Sweden,
Brazil, Norway, Italy, Cuba, Greece, China, Germany, Spain, and Austria. Consul-
tant for many public and private organizations. E-mail: [email protected].

Porfirio Guevara is Senior Associate at INCAE Business School (Costa Rica). He

holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability Management, University of Graz, Austria; M.Ph. in
System Dynamics from the University of Bergen, Norway; M.Sc. in Economics
from the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain); and B.Ph. in Economics,
University of Costa Rica. His research interests include complex system dynamics
modeling and simulation; economics of technological change and education.
E-mail: [email protected].

Ton J€ org (1946) studied Physics and Mathematics with Chemistry (B.Sc., 1970).
In 1970 he switched to the study of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam
(MA, 1977). He received his Ph.D. in 1994. He was affiliated as educational
scientist and evaluation researcher at the University of Utrecht, for different
departments. In 2008, he retired and became an author. In 2011, his book on New
Thinking in Complexity for the Social Sciences and Humanities—A Generative,
Transdisciplinary Approach was published by Springer Publishers. Recently, he
published several articles with “applications” of thinking in complexity: on topics
like innovation, management of knowledge, and education. He is now writing a
new book, titled Towards A New Science of Complexity, which is based on the new
paradigm of generative complexity, which is of use for all disciplines, operating in
the Age of Complexity. E-mail: [email protected].
xii About the Contributors

Matthijs Koopmans is Associate Professor and Assessment Coordinator at the

School of Education at Mercy College. His professional interests include the
application of complex dynamical systems approaches in education, cause and
effect relationships, and nonlinear time series. He published numerous research
articles and book reviews in peer-reviewed journals including Evaluation and
Program Planning; Nonlinear, Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences; and
Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity in Education. He is one of
the editors of Chaos and Complexity in Psychology: The Theory of Nonlinear
Dynamics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. He earned his
doctorate in 1988 at Harvard Graduate School of Education. E-mail:
[email protected].

Tim Mainhard is associate professor at the Department of Education at Utrecht

University, The Netherlands. Tim Mainhard obtained his doctorate at Utrecht
University with a dissertation on the development of interpersonal teacher–student
relationships in secondary education. His general research interests are social
dynamics in the context of educational settings. He combines observation and
questionnaire-based data, and his research is inspired by the Social Relations
Model and nonlinear dynamics. Tim has published on the interpersonal dynamics
of real-time classroom interactions, convergence between student and teacher
perceptions of classroom interpersonal processes, and the development of teacher–
student relationships during the first months in new classes. A list of publications is
available via http://scholar.google.nl/citations?user¼mgRXYMwAAAAJ&hl¼en.
E-mail: [email protected].

Russ Marion Professor of Leadership at Clemson University, has written numer-

ous research and theoretical articles on complexity leadership, one of which was
honored as best paper of the year by The Leadership Quarterly and the Center for
Creative Leadership in 2001. An article he wrote with Uhl-Bien and McKelvey
(2007) was the top-cited article in The Leadership Quarterly between 2007 and
2012, and his 2001 “best paper” article was one of the 15 most cited. He and
Uhl-Bien served as guest editors of a special issue of The Leadership Quarterly on
leadership and complexity in 2007. Marion is the author of the books The Edge of
Organization (1999), Leadership in Education (now in two editions), and Com-
plexity Leadership (with Mary-Uhl-Bien; 2007). Dr. Marion has co-organized
workshops on complexity leadership at the Center for Creative Leadership and at
George Washington University. He has lectured on complexity leadership at the
India Institute of Technology, the Institute for Management Development in Swit-
zerland, at Maasai-Mara University in Kenya, and in workshops on destructing
complex movements at the US Department of Defense. Marion is currently working
to develop unique strategies for evaluating outcomes in complex system. E-mail:
[email protected].
About the Contributors xiii

Helena J.M. Pennings She is currently finishing her Ph.D. research in Educational
Sciences at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She recently started as a postdoc-
toral fellow at the Department of Education at Utrecht University and at the
Eindhoven School of Education at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her
research topics are related to the interpersonal (social) dynamics in education. She
uses an innovative method to observe teacher–student interactions, the computer
joystick method, and is currently working on analyzing these data with time series
analysis such as spectral analysis and state space grid analysis. She published
several research articles on teacher interpersonal behavior and teacher–student
interactions where she used State Space Grid analysis. A list of publications is
available via http://scholar.google.nl/citations?user¼P2ZdfrUAAAAJ&hl¼en.
E-mail: [email protected].

Emilio Porta is Senior Economist at Analitica and board member of FUNIDES

where he provides advice on education statistics and planning to developing
countries. Before, he was Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank. From
2007 to 2012 he led the Bank’s work on education statistics, transforming EdStats
and developing tools for analyzing education statistics. Between 2000 and 2005 he
was Director of Planning at the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education. He has been
consultant for UNESCO, IDB, and WB and has published extensively in the area of
education statistics, equity, and learning outcomes. E-mail: [email protected].

Daniel Russell is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Physical

Therapy and Athletic Training at Old Dominion University. His training has
included earning a B.Sc. (Hons) Sport Science from Manchester Metropolitan
University, UK, an MS in Kinesiology from Louisiana State University, and a
Ph. D. in Kinesiology from the Pennsylvania State University. He has over 20 years
of experience researching how humans control and learn movements and has
published in well-regarded peer-review journals. Dr. Russell’s work begins with
the assumption that human movements emerge from a complex interaction of
neurological, musculoskeletal, and cardiorespiratory systems acting between an
individual and their environment. He employs nonlinear analyzes as part of a
dynamic systems approach to address questions about how behavior arises from
this complexity and how it changes through processes of adaptation and learning.
E-mail: [email protected].

Craig Schreiber’s skill set includes change management and the effective coor-
dination and collaboration within and between organizations to accomplish inno-
vative and adaptive outcomes, the relation of organizations to societal and global
issues within the hyper-connected context, and leadership processes that enable
agile functioning. He uses social network analysis and systems thinking methodol-
ogies in most of his research and consulting practice. He has conducted research for
the Center for Creative Leadership, Bank of America, Lockheed Martin, Stryker
Medical, Booz Allen Hamilton, NASA, Office of Naval Research, Army Research
xiv About the Contributors

Laboratory, and National Science Foundation. Dr. Schreiber is also a Salzburg

Global Fellow studying the social value of business practice. He has published his
research in book chapters and refereed journal articles. E-mail: craigschreiber.
[email protected].

Georgios D. Sideridis is a Survey Methodologist at Boston Children’s Hospital,

and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He is studying
measurement error in traditional and contemporary psychometric theory, and moti-
vation and learning in typical and special populations. He has published more than
120 articles in journals such as Journal of Educational Psychology, Motivation &
Emotion, Journal of Applied Measurement, and Educational and Psychological
Measurement, to name a few. E-mail: [email protected].

Dimitrios Stamovlasis is Assistant Professor of Research Methodology and

Applied Statistics in Social Science at the Aristotle University, Department of
Philosophy and Education. His research interests are interdisciplinary and they
focus on methodological and epistemological issues of contemporary social sci-
ences that improve theory building; on nonlinear dynamics (complexity, catastro-
phe theory, entropy, and related fields) and their application to social, behavioral,
and life sciences; on specific research endeavors in the area of educational research
concerning neo-Piagetian theories, learning, science education, problem solving,
creativity, and group dynamics. He published numerous research articles in peer-
reviewed journals, and he served as a guest editor in the Special Issue of Nonlinear
Dynamics, Psychology and Life Science (2014) focused on Nonlinear Dynamics in
Education. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Ioannina (2001) and he also
holds an M.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Hawaii, an M.B.A., and
a M.Sc. in Statistics from the University of Athens. E-mail: [email protected].

Henderien Steenbeek (1965) studied developmental psychology at the University

of Groningen, where she defended her Ph.D. thesis in 2006. The subject of her
thesis was modeling dyadic child–peer interactions during play. She currently
works as associate professor at the department of Developmental Psychology at
the same university. In addition, she works as a professor at Teachers College at the
University of Applied Studies in Groningen. In her work she focuses on child–adult
and child–child interaction in play-educational settings. Her research themes are
children’s learning processes in primary education (with a focus on children with
special needs, and excellent performing children) and the dynamics of children’s
play. Most studies are focused on the observation of interaction behaviors in
naturalistic circumstances. http://www.rug.nl/staff/h.w.steenbeek/research.
E-mail: [email protected].

Go Tani is professor at the School Physical Education and Sport of the University
of S~ao Paulo, and member of the Motor Behavior Laboratory for 30 years. He
earned his undergraduate degree in physical education from the Universidade de
S~ao Paulo (1973); a master’s degree in Education from Hiroshima University
About the Contributors xv

(1978); a Ph.D. in Education from Hiroshima University (1982); and has held a
Postdoctoral fellow in Psychology at the University of Sheffield (1995) and from
Hiroshima University (1996). E-mail: [email protected].

Marijn van Dijk (1972) studied developmental psychology at the University of

Tilburg. In 2004, she defended her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Groningen, on
variability and ambiguity in early language acquisition. She currently works as an
associate professor in developmental psychology. Her research theme is early social
and cognitive development from a complexity approach. The focus is on teacher–
child and parent–child interaction and the dynamics of learning in primary educa-
tion. Most studies are focused on change processes and the observation of interac-
tion behaviors in naturalistic circumstances. E-mail: [email protected].

Paul van Geert (1950) holds a doctoral degree from the University of Ghent
(Belgium) and is a professor of developmental psychology at the University of
Groningen in the Netherlands since 1985. He has had a pioneering role in the
application of dynamic systems theory to a broad range of developmental areas,
including early language development and second language acquisition; cognitive
development in the context of learning-teaching processes; and social development
including social interaction and identity. His main aim is to better understand the
general nature of developmental dynamics, i.e., nature of the mechanism(s) that
drive and shape a developmental process in an individual, as the individual, given
his or her biological properties and potentialities, interacts with his or her actively
explored and transformed environment. He has been Fellow at the Center for
Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences and has held visiting professorships
at the Universities of Torino (Italy), Paris V and Reims (France), Trondheim
(Norway), and Harvard University (Mind-Brain-Education program). For his
research and an overview of his artwork, see www.paulvangeert.nl. E-mail: p. l.
c. [email protected].

Sabine van Vondel is currently working on her Ph.D. thesis in developmental

psychology at the University of Groningen. She holds an M.Sc. in Education and
Development of Behavioural and Social Sciences (research master) and an M.Sc. in
Developmental Psychology, both at the University of Groningen. The focus of her
thesis is studying the effects of a Video Feedback Coaching intervention for
teachers on teacher–student interactions during science and technology education.
Her research interests focus on the interface of educational science and develop-
mental psychology, more specifically on teaching–learning processes that support
(or hinder) student’s learning in elementary education. E-mail: s. van. vondel@rug.
nl.
Chapter 1
Introduction to Education as a Complex
Dynamical System

Matthijs Koopmans and Dimitrios Stamovlasis

This book seeks to introduce educational researchers, practitioners, and policy

makers to the theory of Complex Dynamical Systems (CDS), a novel perspective
that has gained considerable ground in many scientific disciplines, but whose
applicability to education remains underappreciated. The theory of complex
dynamical systems (CDS) is concerned with the analysis of systems irrespective
of how the unit of analysis of those systems is defined. These systems could be
molecules, cells, words, people, or human organizations. In recent years, there has
been a growing interest in the use of a complexity perspective in social science
research as well as policy and practice, as the perspective provides a rich and widely
applicable vocabulary to capture processes of change and the interaction between
individuals and larger organizational constellations. This book focuses on educa-
tional processes in human systems.
Let us begin with a clarification of the terminology. When we say complex, we
mean that the behavior of a larger systemic constellation cannot be readily reduced to
that of its individual members. Consequently, the perspective inspires a holistic view
where the behavior of individuals is understood in its larger context. For example, we
can understand student learning in terms of collaborative behavior in the classroom in
which it takes place, while a classroom climate conducive to learning cannot be
readily reduced to the learning or interactive behavior of individual teachers and
students. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When we say
dynamical, we mean that current behavior is understood in terms of deviations from
past behavior. As a result, the perspective focuses on behavioral change and its

M. Koopmans (*)
Mercy College, School of Education, Mercy Hall, Rm. SE 31, 555 Broadway,
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
D. Stamovlasis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Philosophy
and Education, 54 124 Thessaloniki, Greece, Europe
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

M. Koopmans, D. Stamovlasis (eds.), Complex Dynamical Systems
in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27577-2_1
2 M. Koopmans and D. Stamovlasis

determinants, rather than on outcomes frozen in time. Thus, we might take an interest
in the learning trajectories of individuals rather than whether students meet certain
benchmarks or performance goals as a group. When we say systems, we refer to a
constellation of individual members who are in a position to interact with each other
as a coherent entity. In this sense, schools, districts, classrooms, and parent–teacher
conferences are all examples of systems, and when we would like to understand the
behavior of individuals within such systems, we also need to look at the behavior of
other units at the same level of description within the same system.
This book seeks to provide a conceptual and methodological introduction to the
use of complex dynamical systems (CDS) approaches in education, covering most
of the basic dynamical concepts that can be found in the literature, such as
emergence, complexity, self-organized criticality, attractors, catastrophe theory,
chaos theory as well as recent innovations to the complexity field such as fractional
differencing and power laws. As a field of inquiry, education has been slow to catch
on to complex dynamical systems approaches, whereas, in other disciplines, such as
psychology, econometrics, and theoretical biology, dynamical approaches have by
now been largely integrated into the theoretical and empirical research agenda.
Psychology, for example, has produced several edited volumes about the applica-
tion of dynamical systems approaches to various subspecialties in the field (Abra-
ham & Gilgen, 1995; Guastello, Koopmans, & Pincus, 2009; Robertson & Combs,
1995; Sulis & Combs, 1996; Tschacher & Dauwalder, 1999), but there is no similar
book that is specific to the field of education. This book seeks to address this gap.
In education, work from a complexity perspective tends to be theoretical, and
covers such topics as the exploration of the interface between dynamical systems,
education, and post-modernism (e.g., Doll, 1993; Truiet, 2012), the use of com-
plexity to characterize the political process in education (Osberg & Biesta, 2010),
the implications for practice of complexity as a paradigm shift (Davis & Sumara,
2006), or it consists of retrospective interpretations in terms of complexity of
research findings from studies utilizing conventional research paradigms (Morri-
son, 2006). While this work is valuable in its own right, it does not have the level of
conceptual and methodological specificity that is required to capture the dynamical
processes hypothesized in the dynamical literature, such as emergence, second
order change, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions, nor does it speak to
the specific gaps in our knowledge that result from the relative absence of dynam-
ical perspectives in empirical research in education.
There needs to be greater clarity about how research into the dynamical aspects
of the educational process can inform and supplement our knowledge obtained
through more traditional research paradigms such as randomized control trial
studies, quasi-experimental designs, and qualitative research. Recent progress in
the field of dynamical systems includes significant empirical work to study the
dynamical underpinnings of the educational process. A first inventory of this work
was a special issue in Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences on
education (Stamovlasis & Koopmans, 2014), which brought together significant
new empirical studies in education that explicitly utilize a complexity perspective.
This book further capitalizes on these developments by presenting some of the most
recent path-breaking advances in this area.
1 Introduction to Education as a Complex Dynamical System 3

The six chapters immediately following this introduction discuss the conceptual
framework of complex dynamical systems and its applicability to educational
processes. Chapters 8–10 translate some of these concepts into coherent research
methodology. Chapters 11–17 report the results of empirical research illustrating
the use of CDS research methods. This work aims to help the reader appreciate what
we can learn about dynamical processes in education when this angle is taken. In
Chap. 2, Fleener appreciates, at a theoretical level, the implications of CDS as a
paradigm shift in education and its ability to address long-standing issues to which
conventional research paradigms have failed to produce satisfying answers, such as
how the complexities of school environment and individual differences contribute
to learning outcomes, and to forge a new kind of link between research and practice.
In Chap. 3, Bloom further explores the historical affinity between qualitative
research and complexity research that dates back to the work of Gregory Bateson
in the 1930s. Qualitative transformation is one of the central concerns in CDS, and
the fine-grained observation that qualitative research permits make it possible to
bring the dynamical underpinnings of causal processes to the surface in a way that
randomized control trial studies cannot (Maxwell, 2004, 2012).
Currently, it is difficult to imagine how one can talk about change in dynamical
terms without talking about emergence, the appearance of radical novelty in
systemic behavior and the search for the origins of such novelty. Goldstein dis-
cusses the construct of emergence in Chap. 4 and points to the failure of most
current dynamical literature to explain such novelty. He presents self-transcending
constructions as one possible way to distinguish spontaneous transformation that
may occur without any theoretically interesting antecedents from a change process
where the propensity toward transformation is already built into the system. The
identification of such propensities is both of theoretical and pragmatic interest to the
field of education, because it will help us understand why change does occur or fails
to transpire. This knowledge may, in turn, place findings of existing research into
clearer perspective. It may even help us penetrate deeper into the metaphysical
realm of questions about the origins of complex dynamical systems.
In Chap. 5, J€org appreciates the magnitude of the paradigm shift produced in the
field if a complexity perspective is taken, and he introduces the term generative
complexity as a new way of looking at systemic behavior in terms of the processes
through which systems maintain their integrity in the ongoing interrelationship
with their constituent components. His contribution is unique in that it is grounded
in a combination of the philosophical and early developmental literature (Vygotsky),
rather than in the accomplishments in mathematics, physics, and chemistry (e.g., Bak,
1996; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Thom, 1975), engineering (Ashby, 1957; Wiener
(1961), or anthropology (Bateson, 1972) as has been more common in the field of
complexity.
Chapters 6 and 7 analyze, respectively, the dynamical processes underlying the
acquisition of motor skills and children’s play, which both require description of how
integrated behavioral patterns occur over and above the individual elements that make
up those patterns. In Chap. 6, Corrêa, Correia and Tani describe the complex processes
that constitute psychomotor behavior, such as the fluency of movement based on
identifiable behavioral elements, as well as the dynamical components of that
4 M. Koopmans and D. Stamovlasis

behavior: consistency and flexibility are both present in the behavior. They address the
question on motor skills acquisition as the main goal for teaching and coaching, based
on a nonequilibrium model of motor learning, where psychomotor behavior can be
understood as adaptive behavior in its spatiotemporal context. Likewise, in Chap. 7
Fromberg analyzes the contextual, transformative aspects of children’s play as well as
the complex relationship of the individual play episodes with the larger developmental
outcomes to which the play activities bear a generative relationship. Play is the means
through which children acquire their adaptive skills in the interface with the external
environment, and the relationship between these developmental outcomes and indi-
vidual play episodes illustrates complexity.
Koopmans in Chap. 8 focuses on an important methodological implication of
taking a dynamical approach, namely the need to augment our knowledge grounded
in rigorously sampled cross-sectional studies with an equally rigorous collection
information about the behavior of individuals observed frequently over extended
time periods. This focus on the changes in systemic behavior over time addresses a
potentially very important aspect of cause and effect relationships in education,
namely the extent to which behavior can be understood in terms of its own previous
manifestations.
Complex dynamical systems approaches are grounded in a wide variety of
mathematical models. One of the most important ones is a family of models known
as catastrophe theory, a formulation of discontinuous changes based on sets of
predictors that model the conditions under which discontinuity occurs. Stamovlasis
in Chap. 9 provides a complete presentation of catastrophe theory starting with a brief
history of its mathematical foundation and continuous with its mathematical formal-
ism in deterministic and stochastic forms. Subsequently, he reviews all the current
statistical methodologies that apply catastrophe theory to real data, focusing on cusp
model, and discusses central epistemological issues associated with nonlinear
dynamics in social and behavioral sciences. Furthermore, he demonstrates the appli-
cability of catastrophe theory in educational research by presenting nonlinear models
within the neo-Piagetian framework and science education. Marion and Schreiber in
Chap. 10 discuss the recent advances in the use of network analysis and provide a
primer of how these methods can be used in educational research. The main interest is
to study networks of agents who share work-related experiences. For example,
students and teachers in a given school, or informal leaders in a school community
might constitute a relevant network. Network analysis has strong grounding in the
mathematics of graph theory and it has a specific terminology in describing the
system under consideration, associated with various network-level and agent-level
measures. It is therefore a particularly useful approach to provide an empirical basis
for our descriptions of how systems are organized.
A set of empirical studies follows in Chaps. 11–17. Each of these chapters
provides examples of methodologies that are specific to the description of complex
dynamical process and the exploration and confirmation of the hypotheses it
generates. The section showcases several standard methodological approaches
that are currently used in CDS: time series analysis, state space grid modelling,
orbital decomposition, network analysis, and catastrophe theory, as well as
1 Introduction to Education as a Complex Dynamical System 5

simulation models. In addition, problem-specific approaches are discussed as well,

such as van Vondel’s macro-dynamical description of student reasoning skills and
the temporal sequencing of types of teacher responses in Chap. 11. Van Vondel and
her coworkers rightly argue that understanding development requires, at a mini-
mum, a detailed understanding of how behavioral changes occur over time and
what the environmental contingencies are of these changes. The authors developed
a unique approach, and demonstrate the surplus value that a complex dynamic
systems approach offers, based on new tools designed to answer questions about
how the underlying processes affect students’ performance and provide insights
into how teachers can optimize their lessons.
The potential of CDS approaches to capture classroom interaction processes has
been appreciated in the literature on at least several occasions recently. Pennings
and Mainhart take the obvious next step in Chap. 12 by collecting and analyzing
teacher interactions with students and the social climate in classrooms using a
rigorous real-time data collection process as well as rigorous modelling practices,
State Space Grids (SSG), to identify the attractors underlying these interactions.
SSG is a powerful tool to examine the moment-to-moment nature of classroom
interactions that could be correlated with teacher and teaching process characteris-
tics. The authors in this chapter are making a remarkable contribution towards the
new paradigm establishing classrooms as complex dynamical systems.
Two papers illustrate the use of orbital decomposition analysis (ODA), a method
designed to study interaction processes and specifically to analyze time series
measured at the nominal level. Stamovlasis in Chap. 13 illustrates the utility of
the symbolic dynamics approach when looking at collaborative learning processes,
where it is shown that discourse analysis of students’ verbal interactions can reveal
those dynamical characteristics that might have a decisive impact on outcomes; this
exemplifies how to look closer, and thus, sheds light into the ‘black box’ of
educational interventions; moreover it demonstrates that small group processes,
under certain circumstances, behaves as a complex dynamical system driven by
self-organization mechanisms, finding that is important for the theory of education
regarding the emergent phenomena, such as learning and creativity. In Chap. 16,
Garner and Russell demonstrate the use of the same approach to better understand
self-regulated learning by looking at the interaction between learners and the
learning materials they use. They use ODA to investigate the nature of gaze
sequences during a self-regulated learning episode. They aimed to investigate
research questions regarding the presence and the nature of patterned sequences
in relation to global task strategies, and furthermore the degree to which these
patterns of acting, responsible for directing attentional guidance during learning,
are the fingerprints of an underling nonlinear dynamical system.
Scrutinizing ordered observations over a long period of time permits the detec-
tion of dynamical processes that otherwise remain hidden. Koopmans illustrates
this point in Chap. 14 when discussing recent advances in time series analysis, such
as fractional differencing and spectral power analysis to detect long-range dynam-
ical features in high school daily attendance over a 7-year period (e.g., pink noise,
self-organized criticality, self-similarity). Guevara and Porta in Chap. 15 reexamine
6 M. Koopmans and D. Stamovlasis

the persistence of inequality in society and the questions it raises about the
instrumentality of the educational system in perpetuating it. The authors build
simulation models to better understand the relationships between critical variables
and triangulate them against data compiled from the educational system of Nicaragua.
It is important to note that simulation techniques are infrequently used in educa-
tional research, while they are particularly useful to address questions about the
temporal evolution and dynamical complexity of the relationship between variables
pertaining to educational outcomes. Within the CDS framework, simulation
models track down the complex interactions of social inequalities that educational
systems generate in the context of global trends, and permit the investigation of
more complex causal models than those typically documented in studies using
traditional linear methods.
Lastly, in Chap. 17 Sideridis and Stamovlasis discuss the complex interrelation-
ships between motivation, arousal and achievement and they use a cusp catastrophe
model to illuminate that relationship as well as providing empirical confirmation of
the nonlinear character of the relationships between these variables. They combined
nonlinear dynamics and self-organization theory in order to explain instabilities in
arousal level in educational settings and thus they built bridges between psychology
and physiology within the nonlinear dynamics and complexity framework.
In conjunction, we believe that these chapters illustrate the potential of CDS in
providing a new perspective on some old and newer problems in education, as well
as providing a new set of interests and priorities for the field to address. The book
also presents a set of methodological innovations that are specifically tailored to the
analysis of processes of stability and transformation in educational systems in
particular, and they demonstrate how these new approaches can be used on real
educational data collected in real educational settings.
The advent of chaos and complexity theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(e.g., Gleick, 1987; Waldrop, 1992; West & Deering, 1995) has created a need
among scientists as well as practitioners, policy makers and the business commu-
nity for a deeper understanding about how these new perspectives can help them
address the most persistent questions of their respective fields. Considering the
enormous variety of disciplines in which these perspectives have been utilized (e.g.,
biology, organizational theory, physics and chemistry, psychology, education, art
medicine), it is not hard to appreciate the difficulty in trying to find consistency in
the language that we use when talking about complex dynamical processes. In the
field of CDS, there has been some serious discussion about its terminological
consistency, or the lack thereof (Abraham, 1995; Goldstein, 1995), resulting in
the realization that we need to get our house in order regarding the definition of our
critical constructs. In that spirit, this book provides a glossary of terms based on
their use in its chapters. These definitions are not meant to be written in stone, but
they provide explicitness about how we used our terms, and may help bring clarity
to the field of complexity in education.
We hope that the contributions presented here will facilitate our discussions of
education as a complex dynamical system and inspire the generation of new types
of questions about educational processes and what makes them effective. The work
presented in this book seeks to take a meaningful first step in that direction.
1 Introduction to Education as a Complex Dynamical System 7

References

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A. R. Gilgen (Eds.), Chaos theory in psychology (pp. 311–342). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Abraham, F. D., & Gilgen, A. R. (1995). Chaos theory in psychology. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Ashby, W. R. (1957). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall.
Bak, P. (1996). How nature works: The science of self-organized criticality. New York: Springer.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind: A revolutionary approach to man’s understand-
ing of himself. New York: Ballantine.
Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and education: Inquiries into learning, teaching, and
research. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Doll, W., Jr. (1993). A postmodern perspective on curriculum. New York, NY: Teachers College
Press.
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: The making of a new science. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Goldstein, J. (1995). The Tower of Babel in nonlinear dynamics: Toward a clarification of terms.
In R. Robertson & A. Combs (Eds.), Chaos theory in psychology and the life sciences
(pp. 39–47). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Guastello, S., Koopmans, M., & Pincus, D. (2009). Chaos and complexity in psychology: The
theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Maxwell, J. A. (2004). Causal explanation, qualitative research, and scientific inquiry. Educa-
tional Researcher, 33, 3–11.
Maxwell, J. A. (2012). The importance of qualitative research for causal explanation in education.
Qualitative Inquiry, 18, 655–661.
Morrison, K. (2006). Complexity theory and education. Paper presented at the APERA confer-
ence, Hong Kong, China. Retrieved April 28, 2014 from http://edisdat.ied.edu.hk/pubarch/
b15907314/full_paper/SYMPO-000004_Keith%20Morrison.pdf.
Osberg, D., & Biesta, G. (2010). Complexity theory and the politics of education. Rotterdam,
Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature.
New York: Bantam.
Robertson, R., & Combs, A. (1995). Chaos theory in psychology and the life sciences. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Stamovlasis, D., & Koopmans, M. (2014). Editorial introduction: Education is a dynamical
system. Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences, 18(1), 1–4. Special Issue:
Nonlinear Dynamics in Education.
Sulis, W., & Combs, A. (1996). Nonlinear dynamics in human behavior. Singapore: World
Scientific.
Thom, R. (1975). Structural stability and morphogenesis. New York: Benjamin-Addison-Wesley.
Truiet, D. (2012). Pragmatism, postmodernism and complexity theory: The fascinating imagina-
tive realm of William Doll, Jr. New York, NY: Routledge.
Tschacher, W., & Dauwalder, J. P. (1999). Dynamics, synergetics, autonomous agents. Singapore:
World Scientific.
Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of chaos. New York:
Simon & Shuster.
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ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chapter 2
Re-searching Methods in Educational
Research: A Transdisciplinary Approach

M. Jayne Fleener

Academic educational research has been criticized for its inability to address the
most intractable problems of public education. While critics point to the lack of
impact educational research has had on policy and practice as evidence that the
problem lies in a commitment of educational researchers to make a difference in the
real context of schools, there is a more fundamental flaw with our ability to conduct
meaningful educational research that requires a shift in our thinking about the goals
and practices of educational research.
As a dean, I was always defending my faculty to policy makers and community
leaders because they wanted to see research that was site based, scalable, and
relevant to schools, practitioners, and policy makers. Even as I described some of
the really outstanding research my faculty was doing and many of the innovations
in which they were involved, community leaders felt the research being done was
too “ivory tower” and not grounded in the real world.
This disconnect between the educational research being done by my faculty and
the expectations of policy makers for definitive answers to significant challenges in
education goes beyond a difference in purposes and goals of educational research. I
know my faculty wanted to make a difference in the real context of schools. They
wanted to impact and shape the future of education in positive ways. The disconnect
points to the need for educational research to catalyze and sustain change in
educational contexts. The drive to relevancy, however, does not require all educa-
tional research to be field based or empirical. The relevancy comes from a system of
research, not separate research studies, that informs practice, promotes change, and
makes a difference in meeting the goals of education.
This paper is an attempt to bridge the policy-researcher expectations gap by
presenting a systems perspective of education research that addresses the

M.J. Fleener (*)

Friday Institute for Education Innovation, College of Education, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 9

M. Koopmans, D. Stamovlasis (eds.), Complex Dynamical Systems
in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27577-2_2
10 M.J. Fleener

complexities of educational contexts, scalability of innovation, and sustained

change. Interrogating the questions we pose and the research methods we employ
supports a systems view of research that includes transdisciplinary application of
complexity sciences approaches to educational research.
A systems perspective of educational research engages the “re” in research by
creating a system of inquiry that is layered, recursive, self-reflexive, and conversa-
tional (interconnected). This multidimensional approach of re-searching involves a
dynamic interplay across contexts, inquiry, and modes of inquiry. This re-searching
process requires what Wittgenstein (1953) would refer to as a change in aspect
(Fleener, 2002), specifically in this case, what Ton J€org refers to as “thinking in
complexity” (J€ org, 2011). Building on Morin’s notions of complex thought and
method, this approach advocates for a more complex understanding of educational
research as a system of re-searching. From the questions we ask to the methods we
employ, our ability to address the challenges of education requires a system of
research/inquiry that “reconnects that which is disjointed and compartmentalized”
(Montuori, 2008, p. vii) and layers research and innovation across contexts and
scales (Coburn, 2003).

The Question of Questions

The first issue of re-search is thinking about the kinds of questions that are asked.
We have all experienced the unending litany of “why’s” from an inquisitive 5 year
old. While we may ultimately end this type of recursive questioning with “because I
said so,” the profundity of the child’s inquiry is shaping their world. Before we ever
approach the “how” or “what” of research, we first need to question the “why”
(Fleener, 2002, 2004).
Sometimes in exploring the “why” we discover even deeper questions that
become even more central to the problems at hand. Reaching a point of impasse,
as with the 5 year old, we are forced to create new solutions to our problems (or at
least acknowledge defeat!). The biologist Humberto Maturana tells the story of
problematizing the meaning of life as a pivotal point in his ultimate creation of the
notion of “autopoiesis” or “self-creation” as a way to think about living systems
(Maturana, 1980). As he explored attempts to answer the question “what is life” he
discovered both internal and external contradictions with the approaches. Either
attempts to answer the question would enumerate all of the characteristics of living
systems, reaching a point where an artificial line ends up being drawn, or, as the list
continues to be enumerated ad infinitum, the distinction between living systems and
nonliving systems starts to become blurred. In either case, the ultimate answer to
the question of a definition of life seemed to suggest we already knew the answer!
The “why” that problematized assumptions (about the meaning of life) also
exposed our limitations in understanding (of life) and opened up entirely new
avenues of exploration. Maturana and his student Franscisco Varela created a
notion of life that was self-reflective, self-reflexive, and self-generating.
The “why” problematizes our thinking, allowing us to escape hidden assumptions
and create new ways of thinking about problems in more complex ways.
2 Re-searching Methods in Educational Research: A Transdisciplinary Approach 11

There is another aspect of the “why” that is important in educational contexts.

Sometimes we forget to provide opportunities for our students to interrogate their
learning to open up new possibilities and engage them in expanding their world and
their place in it. As an example, from my experience in teaching computer pro-
gramming, I had one of those “take back” moments where I wished I had been more
prescient about the kinds of questions computers can and cannot solve and more
open to the possibilities of computer intelligence. The standard curricula for
teaching introductory computer science detailed beginning programming instruc-
tion with definitions of an algorithm. I would assign students homework to define
their algorithms for getting ready for school, preparing a meal, or going on a trip to
initiate discussion in class about computer algorithms. I would lead discussions to
probe students to think about what kinds of problems computers can solve and,
importantly, not solve. Computers, we would decide, cannot solve complex prob-
lems that require intuition and insight. Computers need clear algorithms as step-by-
step procedures, we decided, per the curriculum. Problems like war, poverty, and
discrimination were not problems for the computer!
These discussions with my computer science students were occurring at the
same time as an entirely new kind of mathematics was being developed. It was not
until 1975 that Benoit Mandelbrot invented the word “fractal” to describe patterned
relationships that embody unpredictability, indeterminacy, and “chaos” (Gleick,
1987). The next year, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken solved the four color
problem using computers, raising issues of a new kind of computer intelligence and
proof based on recursive problem solving and the ability to perform more calcula-
tions than a single human could in a lifetime. And just 13 years earlier, Lorenz
developed analytic modeling tools that proved weather was not predictable beyond
a few days and logistic functions provided new insights into unfolding patterns in
chaotic systems (Gleick, 1987). These and other twentieth century scientific pio-
neers invented new approaches to inquiry that embraced rather than attempted to
control for ambiguity and complexity, exploring patterned emergence, reorganiza-
tion, and complex dynamics.
By failing to complexify the re-searching of educational problems, we also pass
on our unexamined assumptions to our graduate students, the next generation of
educational researchers. We tell our graduate students they must have clearly
definable terms and constructs with answerable questions. As we probe their
thinking about key constructs, we encourage them to go to the literature to find
definitions of terms like “learning,” “problem solving,” and “knowing” that they
can use. These very constructs, when pushed to their limits, invite multilayered
discourse across multiple domains of inquiry including cybernetics, philosophy,
sociology, anthropology, and the learning sciences. Too often, we fail to invite this
complicated conversation across inquiry domains because we perceive the ques-
tions too irrelevant to educational contexts or the methods out of reach.
Complexifying our questioning exposes connections and relationships across
intellectual domains and opens up the possibilities for new ways of thinking about
problems. We have seen this process ebb, flow, and progress throughout the
twentieth century in the sciences, for example, when Einstein first proposed the
12 M.J. Fleener

general theory of relativity (1915), the Copenhagen Conference debated the nature
of quanta (1928), G€odel proved the incompleteness of mathematics (1931), the
Macy Conferences (1944–1954) developed interdisciplinary approaches to study
systems and invented the field of cybernetics (Umpleby & Dent, 1999), and the
1984 convening of physicists and economists in Santa Fe explored transdisciplinary
approaches (Morin, 2008) and invented complexity research (Waldrop, 1992). This
list of great twentieth century scientists and convenings, of course, is incomplete, as
there are many pioneers who have shaped our understandings by interrogating the
questions they were asking and looking outside of traditional boundaries to address
significant problems in their fields.
Complexifying questions can often lead to the core of a problem, helping us
arrive at a point where we have to reach outside traditional boundaries of thought.
As we complexify educational research, we challenge the kinds of questions we
might pose and need to extend our methods to include approaches to inquiry that
address the inherent complexity of education as a social system. Education is also
an important social system that impacts and shapes the vitality of any society.
Educational innovation and reform, as an example, have their own set of implicit
and explicit goals and assumptions that constrain how our work is done in schools
(Hatch, 1998). Questions about curriculum, teaching, teacher preparation and
development, school leadership, school organization, and so on, create a metaphor-
ical Tower of Babel like scenario for educational researchers. To overcome the
challenges to educational research, we need to interrogate our own “why” questions
to understand how all of these different pieces of the educational research landscape
come together, not as a puzzle that, when completed creates a clear picture, but as
an ecosystem that is multidimensional, dynamic and is best understood by a
systems approach examining all of its dynamic elements and interactions. And, as
we interrogate our “why” questions of educational research, we open possibilities
for complicated conversations across educational contexts and inquiry domains,
efforts more likely to respond to and engage stakeholders.

The “Why” of Educational Research

I recall, as an early career teacher, I engaged in strategic planning at my school. We

were asked to define the purpose of education and our goals for student outcomes.
We debated issues of college and career readiness, the role prepared students would
play in the future of society, the need for students to be lifelong learners, and the
hope that students would become lovers of learning. Fortunately, these pre-No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) discussions and requirements did not have to address
the assessment and accountability challenges.
Regardless of where we stand on assessment and accountability, to meet the
dynamic challenges of this mandate for universal and equitable education for all,
educational research needs to be focused on studying and transforming how we
prepare the next generation of thinkers and doers. This is a multidimensional
2 Re-searching Methods in Educational Research: A Transdisciplinary Approach 13

challenge, as curriculum, instruction, learning theory, problem solving, teacher

preparation, and all the rest are factors in ultimate student success for the future.
If we can agree (and, of course, I invite thoughtful interrogation of this idea) that
preparing students as the next generation of thinkers and doers is a fundamental
purpose of education and therefore the central focus of educational research, if this
is, indeed, the “why” of education and educational research, what are the “what’s”
and “how’s” of educational research? These are the questions of methods.
Before transitioning to the question of methods, however, we need to tease out the
“why” of education a bit more. What does it mean to be prepared for the future in our
current societal context? Many States and school systems across the USA, as well as
most state departments of education have some set of skills and competencies defined
as twenty-first century learning, skills and dispositions for students upon which
curriculum and instruction should be based. Although assessments are lagging behind
these ideas of twenty-first century learners for which there is some overall accep-
tance, it is clear that, as a society, we recognize “reading, writing and ’rithmatic” are
not sufficient and that unquestioned memorization will not prepare students of the
future to be creative problem solvers, inventors, and adaptors in a world that is rapidly
changing, technologically evolving, and economically globally intertwined.
The Framework for Twenty-First Century Learning developed by the P21
Partnership, the Partnership for Twenty-First Century Learning, is used by many
states in the USA and provides a perspective of the purpose and goals of education
(see Fig. 2.1). As seen in the figure below, the P21 (2009) emphasizes Life and
Career Skills (including flexibility, adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social
and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, and leadership and

P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning

21st Century Student Outcomes and Support Systems

Learning and
Innovation Skills – 4Cs
Critical thinking · Communication
Collaboration · Creativity

Key Subjects – 3Rs

and 21st Century Themes Information,
Life and Media, and
Career Skills Technology
Skills

Standards and
Assessments

Curriculum and Instruction

Professional Development

Learning Environments

© 2009 Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21)

www.P21.org/Framework

Fig. 2.1 Partnership for twenty-first century learning framework for twenty-first century learning
14 M.J. Fleener

responsibility), Information, Media, and Technology Skills (including the ability

to access, evaluate, and use information creatively to solve problems and share new
understandings), Learning and Innovation Skills (including critical thinking,
communication, collaboration, and creativity), and subject matter knowledge
framed within twenty-first century themes (that include global awareness, finan-
cial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy, civic literacy, health literacy,
and environmental literacy).
Participating in a variety of businesses, public and private partnerships, and task
forces for rethinking teacher education, I have observed how complex the conver-
sation becomes when twenty-first century learning skills, for which there is basic
agreement, are considered through the lenses of standards, assessments, curriculum,
instruction, teacher and principal qualifications and development, and alternative
approaches to education. Within the Twenty-First Century Framework, the idea of
these fundamental supports for student learning as “pools of connectivity” provides
a scaffold for educational research. From a complexity perspective, these “pools of
connectivity” suggest a systems approach to educational research, what Bateson
(1972, 1979) would refer to as ecologies of knowing.
Bateson’s notion of “schismogenesis” describes a process of inquiry through
progressive differentiation, literally, “the birth of separation.” As described by
Jewett (2005), Bateson’s application of schismogenesis in and over time revolution-
ized anthropological methods, placing, distancing, and re-placing the researcher
within the context of the researched as both are subject to recursive scrutiny. The
unfolding of research is a re-searching process that creates its own system subject to
continually renewed inquiry, connectedness across contexts and time, and patterned
emergence. The layering of contexts, symmetries, and differences provides an
inquiry of the approaches to inquiry (recursively, an inquiry of inquiry approach),
that complexifies and scaffolds research. Eschewing the goal of inquiry as final
answers, this approach creates the opportunity for a “complicated conversation”
across researchers and researched; a complicated conversation (Fleener, Carter, &
Reeder, 2004; Lu, 2011) that is ongoing and transformative; re-search in its truest
form as perpetual inquiry. The complicated conversation that is research as a system
of inquiry embraces the ever-broadening and recursive understandings in concert.
Through this complex approach to inquiry, we have the opportunity to under-
stand and to transform educational contexts in ways that invite revisiting and
re-engaging the questions we explore while continually interrogating the “what’s”
and “how’s” of educational research. This approach to inquiry is an approach that
recognizes the recursive challenges of thinking about thinking. It invites an
approach to research methodologies that is self-reflexive and dynamic. Such
inquiry describes a questioning of questions and a method of methods whereby
inquiry itself becomes part of that which is studied, adapted, and transformed.
By “complexifying” our methods to include these meta-loops of recursive
inquiry, we open approaches to research that can engage in the “complicated
conversation” of re-searching. Through “complexification” we create a “generative
complexity” that recursively and dynamically interrogates method (see J€org, 2011)
and creates a system of research designed to address the “why’s” of education and
expands the “what’s” and “how’s” of method.
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