Exploring the Competent Outsider Hypothesis Noah Weeth Feinstein 18 March, 2015

Exploring the

Competent

Outsider

Hypothesis

Noah Weeth Feinstein18 March, 2015

The biology of a comet tail

Listeria’s Tail

A different take on Listeria

Listeria’s Tail

Two sorts of engagement

Listeria?

In practice, these different ways of learning about Listeria involve different actions, taken with

different motivations, and produce different sorts of results

Listeria’s Tail

So, is science education about the cantaloupe or the comet tail?

Or both?

Both, right?

Listeria’s Tail

Agenda Two ways of learning about Listeria

Understanding engagement in context

What science education does – and what it might do differently

NEW DATA!

“Making sense of autism” Longitudinal interview study: 10

families followed for 6 months How did science matter to parents as

they attempted to understand and advocate for their children?

Did some parents engage with science in a deeper or more intense manner?

Engagement in context

“Don’t give me a list of books that tell me everything on earth about autism because I don’t have time to read a list of books on everything. What do I need to do now? What can I specifically expect from my son?”


I have a question… Is it a job for

SCIENCE?

Hmmm… ask a different discipline!

NO

Use your science education to figure

out the right scientific source! Way to go, science education!

NOCan you “apply” the

answer from your science education?

YES

Way to go, science education!

YES


“Is this normal?” Because my first child, he would flip his R’s… but never the whole word...

So, I’m like, okay, what is dyslexia? What should I be looking for? Should I be worried about it? So, talking to friends, and they’re going, “Well, that’s kind of weird.”

…next step I check online for… testing of dyslexia and I guess it doesn’t happen ’til… they’re seven.

So, I’m like, “Okay, great. Now what?” So, I called Dr. S and she’s fine, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s probably just the way she’s learning her spelling. And I’m like, “All right. All right. I feel a little better now.”

Sara’s concern


Q

R

Q'

R'

Q''

R''

PROGRESSIVE ENGAGEMENT: Engagement that develops over time through an iterative pattern of questions and resources

TRADING ZONES: “Within a certain cultural arena…two dissimilar groups can find common ground. They can exchange fish for baskets, enforcing subtle equations of correspondence between quantity, quality, and type, and yet utterly disagree on the broader (global) significance of the items exchanged.” (Galison, 1997, p783)

World of family

lifeWorld of medico-science





NEW DATA!

“Curiously, the triumphal progress of science literacy has for the most part taken place in an empirical vacuum. Our field has produced little evidence that any science taught in school, from Newton’s laws to natural selection, helps people lead happier, more successful, or more politically savvy lives.”

What science education does

Norms

Rituals

Ways of making

knowledge

Norms

Rituals

Ways of making

knowledge

NormsRitualsWays of

making knowledge

Knorr Cetina (1999). Epistemic Cultures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Galison (1997). Image and Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press


Norms

Rituals

Ways of making

knowledge

Phelan, Davidson, & Cao (1991). Students' multiple worlds. Anthropology and Education Quarterly,22 (3), 224-250.

Aikenhead (1996). Border-crossing into the subculture of science. Studies in Science Education, 27, 1-52

Jenkins (2007). School science – a questionable construct? J. Curriculum Studies, 39 (3), 265–282


Norms

Rituals

Ways of making

knowledge


Marginal insider (version 1): Someone who possesses an expert-selected set of high-value knowledge

Miller (2004). Public understanding of, and attitudes toward, scientific research. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 273-294


Most schooling is based on the ability to answer questions unrelated to any context outside of the school Latour (1987). Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.


Marginal insider (version 2): someone who understands the “family resemblance” – the common structural and epistemic featuresLederman (2006). Students' and teachers' conceptions of the nature of science. JRST, 29 (4), 331–359.Ford (2008). ‘Grasp of Practice’ as a Reasoning Resource for Inquiry and Nature of Science Understanding. Science and Education, 17 (2-3), 147-177.Osborne (2010). Arguing to Learn in Science. Science, 328 (5977), 463-466.


Peoples’ questions aren’t about “science”

What causes autism?

What causes my son’s autism?

Did he get it from me?

Could I have done anything to prevent it?

Shouldn’t someone do something to prevent it in

the future?

Will he ever speak

normally?

What therapy will help him the

most?

Is there a raised incidence of cancer

in this area?

Why are so many children dying here?

Is it safe to drink the tap

water?How come no-one

else is worried?

Why don’t the authorities accept

MY evidence?

Where can I get the best medical

care?Do I need to move somewhere else?

What is the persistence of

radioactive fallout in chalky soil?Is this going to ruin a

whole year’s flock?

When can I graze the sheep again?

Which pastures are most affected?

Who pays for the damage, and when?

Why don’t they understand grazing?

Who can I trust to give me the straight

story?

How can the progression of

AIDS be slowed or stopped?

How long do I have to live?

Which doctors do I trust?

How can I access experimental treatment?

Will diet and exercise make a difference?

Which treatments should I choose?

How can I get scientists to care

about this?

Brown and Mikkelsen (1997). No Safe Place. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Wynne (1992). Wynne, B. (1992). Misunderstood misunderstandings. Public Understanding of Science, 1 (3): 281-304.

Epstein (1996). Impure Science. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.


[using science is] no more a straightforward application of the scientific knowledge acquired at school or in other formal contexts than technology is merely applied science. Rather it is about creating new knowledge or, where possible, restructuring, reworking and transforming existing scientific knowledge into forms which serve the purpose in hand.

Layton, Jenkins, Macgill, & Davey (1993). Inarticulate science? Driffield, East Yorkshire, UK: Studies in Education. (p. 236)


Competent outsiders:People who can develop satisfying, accurate, and actionable answers to the science-related questions emerging from their lives.

Non-scientis

t

Scientist

Marginal insider

Competent outsider





NEW DATA!

Many nagging questions Are competent outsiders really “a type

apart?” How specialized are competent outsiders? How should we understand the value of

what they do? Is it better or just different? Is there any way to see the difference at

lower resolution and in a shorter time? How do scientists interpret everyday

science?

New data

Competent Outsider hypothesis (in one form)

At least some non-scientists who have sustained contact with a scientific domain will (1) access and (2) interpret knowledge from that domain differently than EITHER domain experts OR a comparable peer group without such sustained contact

Do these differences extend to other

domains?

Better?

Can this be achieved through

practice or preparation?

New data

Design of the studyParents of

autistic children

(n=23)

MD and PhD level autism researchers

(n=6)

Parents of non-

autistic children

(n=21)

News article about autism research

News article about other research topic

New data

Data sources Demographics (including education

level) 3-item validated health literacy scale Articles highlighted during reading Structured interview

4 Likert-style items Each followed by a qualitative prompt

New data

Keep in mind: Numbers are not historically my thing A first stab at deductive, theory-driven

coding/counting of the qualitative data Focusing on “low-inference” codes Due diligence remains to be done What would you want to know

next?

New data

The likert scale items (1-5) How much did you know about this…?

How interesting or important to you…?

How credible/trustworthy…?

How confident are you that you could find the answers to any remaining questions you have…?

New data

The likert scale items

Knowledge Interest Credibility Efficacy0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Comparison parentsAutism parentsResearchers

Not actually so interesting

New data

Coding categories

Formal / methodologica

l cues

Social / Institutional

cues

Rhetorical / contextual

cues

Sense-making

• study design & sample

• data collection & analysis strategies

• appropriateness of conclusions

• peer review • researcher

reputation • journal

reputation • institutional

affiliation • funding source

• news source• discussion of

balance and limitations

• prose quality and clarity

Information-seeking

What type of information did they want more of?

New data

Sense-making: F/M cues

comparison parents autism parents researchers0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Number of different Formal / Methodological cues discussed

no cuesone type of cuemore than one type

New data

WITH EACH TYPE OF CUE: First, the number of cues

people discussed Then, the specific cues they

discussed


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Specific Formal / Methodological cues discussed

study design & sampledata collection & analysisappropriateness of findings

Sense-making: F/M cues

New data

Sense-making: S/I cues


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Number of different Social / Institutional cues discussed


New data

Sense-making: S/I cues


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Specific Social / Institutional cues discussed

researcher reputationjournal reputationinstitutional affiliationfunding source

New data

Sense-making: R/C cues


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Number of different Rhetorical / Contextual cues discussed


New data

Sense-making: R/C cues


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

attended to rhetorical cues

news source/ mediumbalance/ bias/ limitationsprose quality and clarity

New data

Info-seeking: types of cues


0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Number of types of cue sought (F/M, S/I)

neitherone typeboth types

New data

What’s the take home? In the sheer number of things they paid

attention to, autism parents often looked more like researchers

BUT they paid attention to different things You won’t see any of this if you just look

at formal/methodological cues This suggests that autism parents are

doing something that is qualitatively different – not merely intermediate.

New data

Competent Outsider hypothesis (in one form)

At least some non-scientists who have sustained contact with a scientific domain will (1) access and (2) interpret knowledge from that domain differently than EITHER domain experts OR a comparable peer group without such sustained contact

New data

Aggregate signal despite noise There was enormous variance in each

group – including researchers. Using low-inference codes is likely to

add both false positives and false negatives.

My previous research suggests that many autism parents won’t be doing anything that interesting.

So… I’m pleasantly surprised.

New data

About those researchers… They pay more attention to

formal/methodological cues than anyone else.

But they are not naïve empiricists – they pay a lot of attention to other cues!

“Acting like a scientist” doesn’t means focusing only on the evidence – at least not in the typical, narrow sense

New data

What’s next? Comparisons across the two articles. Predictive value of demographics and

health literacy measures Deeper, inductive coding that focuses

on contextualized meaning-making (here, I’ll pull in the highlighting data)

Looking for patterns of particularly intense engagement within both parent groups

New data

QUESTIONS?

Documents

Exploring the Competent Outsider Hypothesis Noah Weeth Feinstein 18 March, 2015