Photo Credit: brandongreer
Adults who want to begin or return to formal higher education are sometimes leery about the ability to think in academic terms. Typically, they have impressive workplace (practical) learning on which to draw, but may feel that they fall short when it comes to academic ‘cogitation’.
The change in thinking is not as severe as imagined. Academics use several conceptual ‘frames’ to consider processes and topics. Three that dominate are if/then hypotheses, cause/effect relationships and theoretical comparisons.
‘If/then’ is more fully expressed as ” if ‘x’ happens, then ‘y’ will result”. The concept stems from actual laboratory or controlled-venue testing and is sequential in nature. So are cause/effect relationships, which most of us perceive informally without realizing it. What’s important is not to confuse the two–what we see as a problem is generally the visible effect, not the root (underlying) cause.
Theoretical comparisons may be the most challenging, as they tend to be abstract. Theories are concepts or beliefs about a topic, behavior or relationship that drive practice, and are often contradictory. However, abstraction can be interpreted in practical ways if the thinker recalls actual experiences. A seasoned manager may know well the distinctions between employees who desire involvement and those who avoid it. Those distinctions reflect two contradictory theories of workplace motivation!
Fri, Jul 24, 2009
Adult Education, Continuing Education