Our collective awe over how science and technology have
affected our lives is noteworthy. I note,
for example, as I walk in a mall or other areas where there are a lot of people,
how many are carrying and using hand-held devices that hook them up to global
information systems. A marvel
indeed. It is not surprising, therefore,
to see how intrusive that worldview of science and technology has been on how
we see human behavior and human problems including those that manifest themselves
in group or other collective settings.
Our reliance on those disciplines to show us how to better our social
relations seems prudent and not so far-fetched.
But, as with any scientific and technological approach, certain
assumptions are made when we study human behavior. We need a starting point since, as with any
segment of reality, complexities abound and in order to get a handle on those
complexities, we need to assume some things.
We should, as best we can, be mindful that we operate under any such
assumptions and calculate how they might affect our analysis of what we observe
is going on, what we determine is wrong, and what we decide we should do.
Implementing change in our social venues is no
different. If we want to approach changing
some social dynamic, be it ongoing, episodic, or highly occasional, certain
assumptions are inevitable. In the
history of such efforts, a leading strategy – the empirical-rational approach –
has adopted the assumption that humans are rational and that they will choose
to behave in such ways that offer the highest level of reward while minimizing costs. Further, those determinations are done on the
margin; that is, they take the following form:
if I do X, it will marginally improve my condition over what is and it
will cost me Y amount more than what I am expending presently. That is, we determine whether marginal
benefit is greater or less than marginal cost.
Economists treat this as comparing marginal revenues – how much more
money will be attained – and marginal costs – how much more money is expended. If marginal benefit (marginal revenue) is
more than marginal cost, then it is rational to do X. If marginal benefit is less than marginal
cost, then it is rational not to do X.
Now substitute a proposed change for X – say hiring one candidate for a
job over another candidate – and you get the rational considerations assumed by
strategies classified as empirical-rational strategies which are identified by
the authors Robert Chin and Kenneth D. Benne.
They claim that this category of change strategy is the type most
commonly employed.[1] If one makes such an assumption, the main
work of change agents that ascribe to this type of strategy is to acquire,
analyze, and distribute the scientific/technological information that
facilitates such calculations. This can
be done so that clients, students, or patients can go about making the
determinations over proposed change(s) that this type of assisting professionals
(consultants, teachers, or medical practitioners) proffer. Procedurally, this strategy includes such
activities as diagnosis, education, and evaluation as a professional studies
the problem area, devises change options, educates the subject, and evaluates the
implemented change activities. Less than
acceptable results indicate a lack of appropriate knowledge and the need to do
more research. As such, the assumption
itself is not questioned.
One might ask: what
usually interferes with implementing needed change or with the success of an implemented
strategy? One often cited cause is wrong
personnel. Fitness for the job is often considered
lacking. Solutions, therefore, are often
hiring new people or rearranging the roles of existing employees. This bias can be a cover of sorts to act out
biases for existing conditions instead of a way to implement change. In any event, as for working toward
curricular change, the object of my interest in addressing this concern, this
option of changing personnel is not readily available for a variety of
reasons. What we generally find is that
this strategy, empirical-rational approach – is apt to work more readily when
considering “thing technologies” – e. g., computers, TV, or other electronic
tools – as opposed to “human technologies.”
The hang up seems to be that with human related change, a lot more is
going on than merely the simple calculations of marginal benefits and marginal
costs. This is what Chin and Benne have
to say when commenting on specific curricular change of a particular effort:
When we assess this situation to find
reasons why such researches have not been more effective in producing changes
in instruction, the answers seem to lie both in the plans of the studies which
produced the materials and designs and in the potential users of the findings. Adequate linkage between consumers and
researchers was frequently not established.
Planned and evaluated demonstrations and experimentations connected with
the use of materials were frequently slighted.
And training of consumer teachers to use the new materials adaptively
and creatively was frequently missing.[2]
More is going on than with the aforementioned calculations of
marginal benefits and marginal costs.
There are role considerations, considerations based on reputational
factors, held biases over curricular content, ongoing social chemistry within
the classrooms, and the like. “Field
testing” of curricular materials is a tricky business and yet we are talking
about a very limited domain of change, whether a set of materials will be used
or not in the instruction of some content.
To change an entire approach to a subject area or to how we run a school
would promise to be way beyond the conceptual parameters of a marginal benefit
vs. marginal cost calculation. Why? Because benefits and costs in such a proposed
change encompass a very large set of relevant factors that are often very
difficult to measure or even identify.
What we do know is that some content will be taught and some
manner of operation will be in play in a given school at a given time. “What is,” in these domains, is usually there
as a product of the evolutionary forces that affect a given school. I had the opportunity to work on a faculty
that opened a school – a brand new school.
While there, I often stopped to consider that, as different situations
popped up, there was not an established way to handle them. We, as a faculty, were creating “the way.” It was a weird experience. And yet, we as a group of workers at that new
school were establishing the way that probably still influences how things are
done there today more than thirty years later.
Changing those elements incurs a cost, some costs being quite high.
So, if one does want to institute a new curriculum,
especially if that newer curricular choice entails some changes in how the
school staff sees itself, how it runs administratively, and how it considers
itself along democratic measures, one cannot see such a project as simply another
change effort. These types of changes go
way beyond empirical-rational considerations.
They will not be accomplished overnight.
Oh, excuse me; there is another approach to change that touts
a fairly quick and efficient process. I
will, in my next posting, address the power-coercive approach. As with empirical-rational approach, power-coercive
does offer some useful ideas, but the level of its comprehensiveness will be questioned. As for empirical-rational, I do appreciate
the basic assumption. We do act on the
margins. The problem is, when it comes
to human interaction, we simply can’t simplify what constitutes benefits and
what constitutes costs, especially at the margins.
