Chapter 27 Methods of Inquiry from WAYS OF KNOWING THROUGH THE REALMS OF MEANING by William Allan Kritsonis, PhD

Copyright © 2011 by William Allan Kritsonis/All Rights Re-served

27

METHODS OF INQUIRY

INSIGHTS

1. The general term “representative ideas” refers to any aspect of a discipline that discloses its essential features.

2. Each discipline has characteristic methods of investigation that distinguish it from other disci-plines.

3. By describing the way men of knowledge in a particular field of scholarship go about their pro-fessional task, these methods in fact define the discipline.

4. The right of a scholar to speak as an author-ity in his field rests on his acceptance of the canons of inquiry by which knowledge is created and validated in it.

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608 PART THREE:THE CURRICULUM FOR GENERAL EDUCATION

5. Materials should be selected so as to exem-plify the methods of inquiry in the disciplines.

6. An understanding of methods overcomes cynicism because it provides clear means for the acquisition of understanding.

7. Knowledge of methods replaces destructive doubt by confidence in the possibility of under-standing.

8. Methods are the unifying elements in a disci-pline, binding together all the separate results of inquiry into one coherent domain of study.

9. An understanding of methods helps to coun-teract the fragmentation of modern knowledge.

10. Understanding of methods helps solve the problem of surfeit in knowledge.

11. If one possesses the tools of inquiry, he is not in need of a large store of accumulated knowl-edge.

12. The methods of a discipline in effect contain all the particular findings that result from inquiry.

13. Knowledge of methods is a kind of surrogate for everything that can be discovered by applying them.

14. Methods generally change much more slowly than do the results of applying them.

15. Overall strategy of inquiry in the several realms of meaning does not change at all.

16. Methods of a discipline are generally more stable than are the results of inquiry.

17. While it may prove impossible for a person to keep pace with the advancing tide of knowledge in a discipline, he may be able quite satisfactorily to remain abreast of the methods of inquiry in it.

18. Much of the knowledge that will be needed in the future is not yet discovered at the time the student is in school, and much of what he may ac-quire there will soon be obsolete.

METHODS OF INQUIRY 609

19. If students in their school years become fa-miliar with basic modes of thought and investiga-tion, they will be better prepared to cope with their changing world.

20. By having attention directed to methods, stu-dents learn attitudes which will prove useful in adapting not only to changing content but even to changing methods.

21. The concern for being up to date should not lead educators to follow the latest fads or to judge the value of knowledge by its recency.

22. There is wisdom in allowing time to sift the worthy from the unworthy.

23. The latest methods are sometimes not as productive in the long run.

24. In general education especially, the great en-during ways of thought should be emphasized.

25. The novel ways had better be tested by spe-cialists before they are seized upon as desirable elements in general education.

26. The most compelling reason for selecting the materials of instruction in order to exemplify methods of inquiry is that these methods are also ways of learning.

27. Methods are the modes of thought that ex-perts have found most efficient in promoting un-derstanding in their disciplines.

28. There are elementary methods and advanced methods.

29. Normally the experienced worker uses ad-vanced methods, while elementary methods are appropriate for beginning students.

30. The methods most useful for teaching some-thing that has already been discovered are not likely to be the same as those actually used in dis-covery.

31. The essence of learning mathematics is in learning to think like a mathematician.


32. To really learn art is to think the way an artist thinks.

33. Gaining personal knowledge is learning to think as an authentic and responsible person thinks.

34. Learning history similarly depends on think-ing like a historian.

35. One clue to good teaching lies in a program of guided rediscovery, in which the student discov-ers for himself what others before him have found out.

36. In every discipline there are both ways of ac-quiring new knowledge and ways of validating knowledge.

37. No single answer can be given to the ques-tion of how we think.

38. There are many ways of teaching and learn-ing.

39. There is no identifiable set of principles that define the methods of teaching in general, be-cause there is no one set of principles that de-scribes how we think.

40. The real substance of method is determined by the structure of what is taught, and that varies according to the realm of meaning.

41. Teaching methods differ within each realm of meaning according to the discipline.

42. The method of teaching for any discipline is simply to provide experiences that encourage the student to engage actively in inquiry according to the patterns of discovery and validation character-istic of the discipline being studied.

43. There are many different methods within each discipline.

44. Like representative ideas, methods appear in hierarchies raging from the most general to the most particular.


45. Methods of inquiry are most readily taught when studies are organized by disciplines (as in English, biology, or history).

46. In studies organized across disciplines but within the same realm (as in general science or art) the general methods applicable to the realm in question may be taught.

47. Broader interdisciplinary studies in which re-sources from many disciplines must be used, are not so favorable to the teaching of methods.

48. For the interdisciplinary type of course the synoptic disciplines may provide useful sugges-tions concerning methods of integrating meanings from several different realms.

49. What is required for good teaching is only that some convincing pattern be used to coordi-nate the materials taught.

50. Any satisfactory structure for a course must exemplify one or more of the realms of meaning.

51. The method chosen in any given unit, course, program, or curriculum depends upon the inten-tion of the teacher or curriculum maker.

52. Effective teaching depends upon the use of some reasonable pattern of organization.

53. In learning the methods of inquiry the stu-dent is stimulated to active engagement with the subject.

54. Methods are ways of doing something—modes of active investigation.

55. Instruction in the characteristic methods of inquiry in the disciplines enlists the vital participa-tion of the student and speeds the acquisition of meanings.

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THE RIGHT OF A SCHOLAR TO SPEAK AS AN AUTHORITY RESTS ON HIS ACCEPTANCE OF THE CANONS OF INQUIRY BY WHICH KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED AND VALIDATED IN IT

The third principle for the selection of curriculum con-tent is really a corollary of the principle of representa-tive ideas treated in the preceding chapter. The general term “representative ideas” refers to any aspect of a discipline that discloses its essential features. One es-pecially significant set of such ideas are the methods of inquiry used in the discipline. Each discipline has char-acteristic methods of investigation that distinguish it from other disciplines. By describing the way men of knowledge in a particular field of scholarship go about their professional task, these methods in fact define the discipline. The right of a scholar to speak as an author-ity in his field rests on his acceptance of the canons of inquiry by which knowledge is created and validated in it.

PROCESSES OF INQUIRY

While the discussion of representative ideas in the preceding chapter gave some implicit consideration to methods, most attention was directed to basic con-cepts, examples of which are phoneme in ordinary lan-guage, set in mathematics, organism in biology, medi-ating process in psychology, movement in the dance, self in personal knowledge, right in ethics, and ultimacy in religion. However, such ideas, which are part of the intellectual apparatus used to express meanings in the various disciplines, may be understood fully only in re-lation to the processes of inquiry. Our discussion of rep-resentative ideas needs to be rounded out with an ex-plicit treatment of the methods of inquiry.

MATERIALS SHOULD BE SELECTED SO AS TO EXEMPLIFY THE METHODS OF INQUIRY IN THE DISCIPLINES


Our third principle for economizing learning effort is that materials should be selected so as to exemplify the methods of inquiry in the disciplines. Centering at-tention on methods has the effect of ameliorating all four of the main threats to meaning earlier described—cynicism, fragmentation, surfeit, and transience. First, an understanding of methods overcomes cynicism be-cause it provides clear means for the acquisition of un-derstanding. Frustration and despair are a result of see-ing no way to overcome ignorance. They vanish when ways of knowing are available. Knowledge of methods replaces destructive doubt by confidence in the possi-bility of understanding.

Second, methods are the unifying elements in a discipline, binding together all the separate results of inquiry into one coherent domain of study. An under-standing of methods helps to counteract the fragmenta-tion of modern knowledge. The particular items of knowledge within a field all bear the stamp of a com-mon derivation. All have their source within one set of methodological principles. Since the methods of the dis-ciplines can be compared and contrasted among them-selves, a basis exists for relating one discipline to an-other, resulting in further unifying the disparate compo-nents of the world of meanings.

Third, it is also clear that understanding of meth-ods helps solve the problem of surfeit in knowledge. If one possesses the tools of inquiry, he is not in need of a large store of accumulated knowledge. He is able to adapt and improvise to meet the needs of particular sit-uations and is less dependent upon the results of oth-ers. The methods of a discipline in effect contain all the particular findings that result from inquiry. In that sense knowledge of methods is a kind of surrogate for every-thing that can be discovered by applying them. This is why their use as a basis for curriculum content can con-tribute so much to economy in learning.


Fourth, the study of methods in the disciplines is especially helpful in respect to transience and modern threats to meaning, because methods generally change much more slowly than do the results of applying them. In fact, the overall strategy of inquiry in the several realms of meaning does not change at all. The respec-tive logics of language, science, art, personal under-standing, morals, and the synoptic disciplines remain constant. Language usages and empirical facts are jus-tified today in the same general manner as they always were, nor have the basic program of the artistic, per-sonal, moral, and integrative enterprises changed over the centuries. Even in science, where the transforma-tions have been most striking, substantial similarities unite the empirical inquiry of the ancient Greeks and Babylonians with the outlook and methods of the mod-ern scientific researcher.

METHOD OF INQUIRY DO CHANGE AT

LOWER LEVELS OF GENERALITY

At a lower level of generality methods of inquiry do change, more in some fields than others. In physics the methods of Newton differed in important ways from those of Planck and Einstein. In economics the methods of Ricardo differed greatly from those of Keynes. The procedures of the modern historian differ from those of Herodotus. Cézanne’s approach to painting differs from that of Michelangelo. Less changeable are the particular methods used in arriving at linguistic understanding and in making moral judgments.

METHODS OF A DISCIPLINE ARE GENERALLY MORE STABLE THAN THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY

Despite these changes, it is still true that the methods of a discipline are generally more stable than are the results of inquiry. Knowledge continually under-goes modification. New discoveries are made, requiring revision of older ideas that may have been developed


by essentially the same methods. While it may prove impossible for a person to keep pace with the advanc-ing tide of knowledge in a discipline, he may be able quite satisfactorily to remain abreast of the methods of inquiry in it.

These considerations are of paramount impor-tance for the modern educator. In a time of rapid cul-tural transformation the content of what is learned at any given time is likely to be unusable before many years have passed. The old conception of the school as a place for accumulating knowledge to be used over a lifetime is no longer appropriate. Much of the knowl-edge that will be needed in the future is not yet discov-ered at the time the student is in school, and much of what he may acquire there will soon be obsolete. If schooling is not to become an exercise in futility, it is imperative that materials for instruction be selected so as to minimize these effects of cultural change. One promising way of achieving this is by teaching methods of inquiry.

If students in their school years become familiar with basic modes of thought and investigation, they will be better prepared to cope with their changing world than if they merely possess a store of information. By having attention directed to methods, students learn at-titudes which will prove useful in adapting not only to changing content but even to changing methods.

EDUCATION NEEDS TO CONTINUE BEYOND THE YEARS

TRADITIONALLY ASSIGNED TO FORMAL SCHOOLING

These considerations about the changes occurring in modern civilization reinforce the suggestion made in Chapter 23 that education now needs to continue be-yond the years traditionally assigned to formal school-ing. Adults in contemporary society need periodic “re-fresher courses” to help them maintain currency in their knowledge. In these continuing studies, as in the work of the earlier school years, the emphasis should


fall on the newer methods of inquiry rather than on the latest findings of scholarship. Such renewal of perspec-tive is usually more necessary in specialized education, where advanced and detailed knowledge are needed, than in general education, which is directed toward a broad grasp of types of understanding. Yet even in gen-eral education periodic occasions for renewal may be helpful in times when fresh vistas are opening up con-tinuously.


Discovery is not the samething as invention. The purpose

of inquiry is discovery. In most casespeople know that something exists andthat it works, but people want to know

howand why. In these cases people are

lookingfor verification. The methods used

haveyielded acceptable results in the past

andpeople repeat the methods to look for

theanswers to new questions. For how

manythousands of years have humans

knownthat some things exist before actually

discovering their existence.



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EDUCATORS SHOULD NOT FOLLOW THE LATEST FADS OR

JUDGE THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE BY ITS RECENCY—THERE IS WISDOM IN ALLOWING TIME TO SIFT THE

WORTHY FROM THE UNWORTHY

A note of caution is needed at this point. The con-cern for being up to date should not lead educators to follow the latest fads or to judge the value of knowledge by its recency. There is wisdom in allowing time to sift the worthy from the unworthy. Much of what is newly made or discovered is far inferior in quality to older things. The latest methods are sometimes not as pro-ductive in the long run as the older, established proce-dures. In general education especially, the great endur-ing ways of thought, which have proved their value in the long experience of humankind, should be empha-sized. The novel ways had better be tested by special-ists before they are seized upon as desirable elements in general education, the purpose of which is not to keep a person up to the minute, but to impart qualities of experience required to fulfill the life of meaning.

METHODS ARE WAYS OF LEARNING

Perhaps the most compelling reason for selecting the materials of instruction in order to exemplify meth-ods of inquiry is that these methods are also ways of learning. They are the methods that long experience has shown are most productive of new understanding by workers in the disciplines. Methods are adopted as working procedures as a result of their demonstrated instructiveness to investigators. Methods are the modes of thought that experts have found most efficient in promoting understanding in their disciplines.

METHODS OF INQUIRY USED BY EXPERTS IN A DISCIPLINE

PROVIDE A PATTERN TO BE IMITATED BY THE TEACHER AND

STUDENT IN GENERAL EDUCATION AT ALL LEVELS


It should not be concluded that the ways of inquiry used by experts in a discipline provide a pattern to be imitated by the teacher and student in general educa-tion at all levels. As explained in Chapter 25, disciplines contain materials of all degrees of difficulty. This holds true of methods too. There are elementary methods and advanced methods. Normally the experienced worker uses advanced methods, while elementary methods are appropriate for beginning students.

METHODS USED FOR TEACHING ARE NOT LIKELY TO BE THE

SAME AS METHODS USED IN DISCOVERY The methods most useful for teaching something

that has already been discovered are not likely to be the same as those actually used in discovery. Educa-tion would be a very inefficient enterprise if each stu-dent had to try to rediscover everything that people usually far more able and experienced had already found out.

METHODS OF INQUIRY ARE RELEVANT TO THE

METHODS OF TEACHING THAT DISCIPLINE

The methods of inquiry in a discipline are still sub-stantially relevant to the methods of teaching that disci-pline in the curriculum of general education. For exam-ple, the essence of learning mathematics is in learning to think like a mathematician. To really learn art is to think the way an artist thinks (in the broad sense of “think,” where feeling and form are combined in a uni-tary significant perception). Gaining personal knowl-edge is learning to think as an authentic and responsi-ble person thinks (where “think” is here taken in a still different, concrete, existential sense). Learning history similarly depends on thinking like a historian.

GOOD TEACHING LIES IN GUIDED REDISCOVERY


One clue to good teaching, then, lies in a program of guided rediscovery, in which the student discovers for himself what others before him have found out. His discovery, however, differs from the original in that it is carried out under conditions graded to his level of ad-vancement in the subject and with guidance based upon prior knowledge, saving him from unrewarding er-rors and frustrations.

IN EVERY DISCIPLINE THERE ARE BOTH WAYS OF ACQUIRING NEW KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS

OF VALIDATING KNOWLEDGE

But more than the method of discovery is needed. In every discipline there are both ways of acquiring new knowledge and ways of validating knowledge. These two kinds of methods are not the same. The ways of learning a language are not the same as the ways of checking the correctness of language usages. The ways of arriving at moral decisions or historical assertions are different from the ways of justifying them. Both kinds of methods have an important place in teaching. At some times the teacher may wish to lead the student into the experience of discovery, helping him to recapitulate certain aspects of the thought of an original researcher. At other times—probably more frequently—the teacher may wish to instruct the student in ways of checking and evaluating existing knowledge. In another more difficult case, one may evaluate what a poet expresses in his poem by reading the poem thoughtfully and sym-pathetically, having respect for the work, allowing for one’s own irrelevant associations and biases, and judg-ing in how far the poem is an “authentic reading of life.” Teaching such evaluative methods in poetry is not the same as teaching the methods of poetic creation, involving the choice of metaphors, the use of rhythmic patterns, and other methods of the art of composition.

Yet the two types of inquiry—discovery and valida-tion—are not really as disparate as might appear at first sight. For example, the method of discovery in science


involves the formation and testing of hypotheses, the latter operation being identical with the method of veri-fication. Similarly, the method of the painter in con-structing his design involves the same kind of repeated observations and critical appraisals that are made by a sensitive viewer of the finished work. The two kinds of methods are related because they both reflect the one logic of the discipline to which they belong. For exam-ple, the methods of making moral decisions are congru-ent with the methods of judging them because both kinds of methods are based upon the same logical pat-tern of meanings in the ethical realm.

METHODS OF INQUIRY AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION HAVE IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS FOR THE

THEORY OF TEACHING

The connection affirmed in the present chapter be-tween methods of inquiry and methods of instruction has important implications for the theory of teaching. It has been supposed by some adherents of the Experi-mentalist philosophy of education that thinking follows a single logical pattern—that of the intelligent biological organism solving the problems of adjustment to its en-vironment. The classic source for the description of this pattern is John Dewey’s How We Think.1 According to the Experimentalists, thought occurs when the impulses of the organism are blocked and some way is sought to direct its energies into channels where satisfaction is possible. According to this view, problem solving is the sovereign method of thought and the central focus of education. This theory underlies the life-adjustment cur-riculum, in which the real problems of children and youth are the central concern of teaching and learning, and in which the purpose of instruction is to use the many resources of culture (including the organized bod-ies of knowledge) to develop effective habits of adjust-ing to life situations.1 D. C. Heath and Company, Boston, 1933.



It makes sense thata teacher could not teach

something that did not previouslyexist. This means in order to teach

methods of inquiry, the teacher mustalready know the answer to what thestudent is looking for and allow the

studentto move in that direction. How far fromthat direction should the teacher allow

the student to stray? Does theteacher know if this will be

a waste of time?


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NO SINGLE ANSWER CAN BE GIVEN TO THE

QUESTION OF HOW WE THINK The present analysis of the fundamental patterns

of meaning indicates that thought does not follow only one logical pattern, such as the supposed method of scientific problem solving advocated by the Experimen-talists, and therefore that no single answer can be given to the question of how we think. In the languages thought follows the pattern of arbitrary symbolic con-struction (symbolics). In the sciences the methods are those of classification, hypothesis formation, general-ization, and explanation by the use of theories and models (empirics). In the arts thought proceeds by per-ceptual abstraction through particular presented forms (esthetics). In the personal realm thought consists in the existential realization of intersubjective relation-ships (synnoetics). Moral thought involves deliberate decisions to act in consideration of principles of right or consequences of good (ethics). Historical thinking inte-grates understanding through recreation of past events in the present. Religious thought unites finite and infi-nite by means of the symbols of ultimacy. Philosophic thought consists of analytic, synthetic, and critical eval-uation of meanings by the use of interpretive concepts (synoptics).

MANY WAYS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

If human beings think in many ways—in at least the six fundamental ways corresponding to the realms of meaning—and if ways of teaching and learning follow from ways of thinking, then there are correspondingly many ways of teaching and learning. The methods of teaching language are distinctive to the symbolic realm, and similarly, the methods of teaching science, art, personal knowledge, morals, and synoptic under-standing are each characteristic of their own realm. There is no identifiable set of principles that define the methods of teaching in general, because there is no


one set of principles that describes how we think. There may well be certain principles of classroom manage-ment, of child development, and of lesson planning that are applicable to teaching in a great many different dis-ciplines, and in this sense one could properly refer to general teaching methods. However, such methods are not in themselves sufficient to guide instruction. They only describe certain aspects of good teaching. The real substance of method is determined by the structure of what is taught, and, as already indicated, that varies according to the realm of meaning.

TEACHING METHODS DIFFER WITHIN EACH REALM OF

MEANING ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE

Teaching methods also differ within each realm of meaning according to the discipline. The methods of or-dinary language instruction differ from the methods of teaching mathematics and both differ from the meth-ods of teaching the nondiscursive symbolisms. Methods of teaching physical science differ in important respects from those appropriate to the life sciences, psychology, and the social sciences (which also differ among them-selves). Teaching methods in music are unlike those in the visual arts, the arts of movement, and literature, and so on through all the disciplines.

The nature of the appropriate methods of instruc-tion follows from the analyses of the fields in Part Two. The method of teaching for any discipline, according to the principle of the present chapter, is simply to provide experiences that encourage the student to engage ac-tively in inquiry according to the patterns of discovery and validation characteristic of the discipline being studied.

METHODS APPEAR IN HIERARCHIES RANGING FROM THE

MOST GENERAL TO THE MOST PARTICULAR

There are also many different methods within each discipline. Like representative ideas, methods appear in


hierarchies ranging from the most general to the most particular. For example, in physics physical measure-ment is a general method of inquiry. Less general are the distinctive methods of measurement adapted to such different physical phenomena as light, electricity, and heat. More specific still are the methods used to make certain particular measurements, such as the speed of light and the flow of electric current.

METHODS OF INQUIRY AND THE DISCIPLINES

Methods of inquiry are most readily taught when studies are organized by disciplines (as in English, biol-ogy, or history). In studies organized across disciplines but within the same realm (as in general science or art) the general methods applicable to the realm in question may be taught. Broader interdisciplinary studies, such as programs combining English, history, and social sci-ence, and curricula based on the project method, in which resources from many disciplines must be used, are not so favorable to the teaching of methods. This is because each of the several component disciplines has a different method and no clue is provided by the sub-ject matter itself as to the methods appropriate to the composite inquiry. For the interdisciplinary type of course the synoptic disciplines may provide useful sug-gestions concerning methods of integrating meanings from several different realms.

GOOD TEACHING REQUIRES THAT SOME CONVINCING PATTERN BE USED TO COORDINATE THE MATERIALS

TAUGHT

As pointed out in Chapter 25, the structure of the disciplines does not necessarily dictate the organization of instructional materials. What is required for good teaching is only that some convincing pattern be used to coordinate the materials taught. Yet, in a broad sense, any satisfactory structure for a course must ex-emplify one or more of the realms of meaning, assum-


ing that those realms cover the entire range of logical possibilities of human signification.

For example, any materials of instruction can be organized symbolically, by treating the subject matter, whatever it may be, from the standpoint of the analysis of symbolic systems. Any materials can be organized empirically, by treating them descriptively and theoreti-cally. Similarly, any content can be organized as an es-thetic pattern or in terms of personal understanding, it can also be organized normatively, or integratively from the standpoint of the past, of the ultimate, or of general interpretive categories.


THE METHOD CHOSEN DEPENDS UPON THE

INTENTION OF THE TEACHER

While there are certain advantages of consistency and reinforcement in choosing the method of organiza-tion to correspond with the method (or methods) of in-quiry in the materials organized, the two need not cor-respond. Scientific materials can be organized estheti-cally, the content of language instruction can be orga-nized around the problems of personal understanding (or self and others), and materials from such diverse fields as music and morals can be organized along his-torical or philosophical lines. The method chosen in any given unit, course, program, or curriculum depends upon the intention of the teacher or curriculum maker—be it to communicate, to describe and explain, to create interesting perceptual forms, to gain direct existential insight, to respond to the claims of conscience, to gain a comprehensive perspective, or to fulfill any combina-tion of these intentions.

THE REALMS OF MEANING AND THE DISCIPLINES REPRESENT

WAYS OF PRODUCTIVE UNDERSTANDING AND MODES OF

ORGANIZING THE MATERIALS FOR INSTRUCTION

Because the realms of meaning and the disciplines represent ways of productive understanding, they also provide suggestions for intelligible modes of organizing the materials of instruction. Effective teaching depends upon the use of some reasonable pattern of organiza-tion, so that instruction is not haphazard and so the course of study is not a series of miscellaneous experi-ences having no clearly defined plan or purpose.

Finally, in learning the methods of inquiry the stu-dent is stimulated to active engagement with the sub-ject. In being concerned with methods, he cannot as-sume a role as passive recipient of what Alfred North Whitehead called “inert ideas.” Methods are ways of do-ing something—modes of active investigation. Instruc-


tion in the characteristic methods of inquiry in the disci-plines enlists the vital participation of the student and speeds the acquisition of meanings.

WAYS OF KNOWING

1. Why is it important to know that each discipline has characteristic methods of investigation that distinguishes it from other disciplines?

2. Why should we select materials that exemplify the methods of inquiry in the disciplines?

3. Why do frustrations and despair vanish when ways of knowing are available?

4. How are methods the unifying elements in a dis-cipline?

5. How does understanding methods help to coun-teract the fragmentation of modern knowledge?

6. How does the understanding of methods help to solve the problem of surfeit knowledge?

7. Why is it important to understand that the methods of a discipline contain all the particular findings that result from inquiry?

8. Why do methods in the disciplines change much more slowly than do the results of applying them?

9. Why has the overall strategy of methods of in-quiry in the several realms of meaning not changed at all?

10. Why do methods of inquiry change at lower lev-els of generality?

11. Why are the methods of a discipline generally more stable than the results of inquiry?

12. Why is the old conception of the school as a place for accumulating knowledge to be used over a lifetime, no longer appropriate?

13. Why should we teach methods of inquiry?14. What are the benefits for students in their

school years in becoming familiar with basic modes of thought and investigation?


15. Why does education need to continue beyond the years traditionally assigned to formal school-ing?

16. Why must educators not follow the latest fads or judge the value of knowledge by its recency?

17. Why is there wisdom in allowing time to sift the worthy knowledge from the unworthy?

18. How can methods be used as ways of learning?19. Why should methods of inquiry used by experts

in a discipline be imitated by the teacher and stu-dent in general education at all levels?

20. Why is it important to understand that methods useful for teaching are not likely to be the same as methods used in discovery?

21. How are methods of inquiry in a discipline rele-vant to the methods of teaching that discipline in the curriculum of general education?

22. How can a program of guided rediscovery be used in which the student discovers for himself what others before him have found out?

23. Why is it important to understand that in every discipline there are both ways of acquiring new knowledge and ways of validating knowledge?

24. How do the methods of acquiring new knowl-edge and the methods of validating knowledge re-flect one logic of the discipline to which they be-long?

25. The Experimentalist philosophy of education emphasizes that thinking follows a single logical pattern—that of the intelligent biological organism solving the problems of adjustment to its environ-ment. What does this all mean?

26. Should problem solving be the central focus of education?

27. Should the real problems of children and youth be the central concern of teaching and learning?

28. Should the purpose of instruction be to use the many resources of culture (including the organized


bodies of knowledge) to develop effective habits of adjusting to life situation?

29. Why can no single answer be given to the ques-tion of how we think?

30. Why is it critically important to understand that there are many ways to teaching and learning?

31. Why is it important to know that the real sub-stance of method is determined by the structure of what is taught, and that varies according to the realm of meaning?

32. Why is it critically important to understand that teaching methods differ within each realm of meaning according to the discipline?

33. Why is it important to know that the method of teaching for any discipline is simply to provide ex-periences that encourages the student to engage actively in inquiry according to the patterns of dis-covery and validation characteristic of the disci-pline being studied?

34. Why is it important to know that methods ap-pear in hierarchies?

35. Why is it important to know how methods of in-quiry are?

36. Why is it important to know when and how methods of inquiry should most readily be taught?

37. Why is it important for the teacher to know that what is required for good teaching is that some convincing pattern must be used to coordinate the materials taught?

38. Why is it important to realize and understand that any satisfactory structure for a course must exemplify one or more of the realms of meaning?

39. Why does the method chosen in any given unit, course, program, or curriculum depend upon the intention of the teacher or curriculum maker?

40. How do the realms of meaning and the disci-plines represent ways of productive understand-ing?


41. How do the realms of meaning and the disci-plines represent modes of organizing the materials for instruction?

42. How is the student stimulated to active engage-ment with the subject in learning methods of in-quiry?

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Chapter 27 Methods of Inquiry from WAYS OF KNOWING THROUGH THE REALMS OF MEANING by William Allan Kritsonis, PhD