Chasing the Chimera’s Tail – An analysis of
contemporary and historical research in
Interest in Science
Abstract
In recent years the concept Interest in Science and Science education overall has been given a lot
of attention, both politically and in the field of research. This article aims to explore the notion,
concept and statement Interest in Science in its contemporary form and four historical
transformations. Interest in Science in the nineteenth century will be analysed through the
discourse of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) and the non-discursive practices
surrounding Science education at the time. The transformation to a modern and contemporary
form will be analysed through the discourses of Dewey, Berlyne/Strong, Gardner and Krapp with
examples of how non-discursive practices shapes the formation of the various discourses
imbedded in the statement of Interest in Science – most notably psychology and pedagogy. This
exploration will end with an analysis of the answers that this discourse brought us in the form of
OECD PISA06 survey and assessment of Interest in Science. The aim of this analysis and
exploration is to show how the current contemporary discursive form of Interest in Science, the
statements intersecting this discourse and its non-discursive practices frames the way we think
and how it allows us to the answer the question:” Why do students lack Interest in Science?”
A glimpse in the fog –Research in Interest in Science
This article will explore the concept Interest in Science and how contemporary and historical
research has been researching the notion. Interest in Science is a research concept, which
since the PISA survey in 2000 (OECD-UNESCO-UIS, 2003) and the ‘interest’ survey in
2006(OECD 2007)has been given a lot of attention both in Denmark and nationally. The
research in Interest in Science has spawned numerous projects and initiatives to improve and
facilitate pupil and student Interest in Science. (ROSE)(ATTRACT)(SAUCE)
My claim in this article is that through tracing the concept of Interest in Science in its
genealogy and archaeology and various transformations we can in the same time shed light on
the dispotif of the natural sciences (abb. Science) and the role of psychology in education and
it’s discursive formation. I will argument the concept of Interest of Science as being
intersected with psychology, mathematics and pedagogy through various practices
exemplified in contemporary and historical projects. Through chasing the chimerical
construct of Interest of Science and Psychology I will show how the Interest in Science and
especially psychology and psychometrics is intrinsically linked and framed in its
contemporary manifestation.
I am drawing heavily on the method of genealogy and archaeology by Foucault (Foucault
1972), which has been expanded and exemplified by various others (Mouffe, Agambe,
Deleuze). My analysis is a tour de force from the construction of mathematical-psychology as
exemplified by Herbart, Dewey’s Interest concept, Berlyne’s behavioristic notion on
Curiousity, Arousal and Interest, Gardner’s transformation of the concept of Interest in
Science to a quasi-modelled construct of behaviourism, psychology and cognitive psychology
(psychometrics) and finally an example of the contemporary practice of the concept in the
PISA 2006 assessment survey. This will be limited to a discourse analytic approach
examining the concept Interest in Science and how it intersects with other serious statements
(here focusing on psychology in particular), and with only few examples of the practices and
non-discursive manifestations of Interest of Science.
I will be using an analogy to The Chimera as the specific hybrid of Interest in Science. The
mythical Chimera is composed of a lion’s head, a goats body and a serpents tail, but those
different animal traits changes place in various depictions of the chimera, sometimes the
serpent is the head, the lion the body and the tail the goat and so forth. Like the chimera the
concept of Interest in Science is transversing several discourses and has a different form in
various historical periods. The process that leads to these transformations and
reconfigurations of The Chimera I will label Chimestry, as a nomenclature of the practices
leading up to a transformation, though not enacting a causality. Chimestry produces a full
transformation in the sense that the earlier statement undergoes a shift or reconfiguration, so
that one may see the statement and it’s concept as Interest in Science, in practice and form it
is a whole new mythological beast only connected in the linguistic form.
PISA06 Interest Survey – A re-enactment of The Chimera
In the nineteenth-century a chimera was born and in the PISA 06 Survey a transformation of
that chimera is enacted and manifested in an international assessment of Interest in Science
(OECD, 2007). The survey was a culmination of research in Interest in Science and put forth
by political and economical needs in the beginning of the twenty-first century; it was the first
PISA Survey, which included an Interest in Science part. The findings of the survey were
though not remarkable, not much had changed since the PISA03 Survey and the findings
regarding Interest in Science seemed quite statistical typical, that Interest in Science had some
correlation with gender and with social and economical background (Egelund, xxxx). To find
the reasons for this lack of surprisingly new findings one must look at the questions and the
frame in which those questions were put forth through the technology of the assessment - an
examination of the discourse is needed.
“Students’ support for scientific enquiry and students’ interest in learning science topics were
directly assessed in the test, using embedded questions that targeted personal, social and global
contexts. In the case of students’ interest in learning science topics, students were able to report
one of the following responses: “high interest”, “medium interest”, “low interest” or “no interest”.
Students reporting high interest or medium interest were considered to report an interest in
learning science topics. For attitudinal questions measuring students’ support for scientific
enquiry, students were asked to express their level of agreement using one of the following
responses: “strongly agree”, “agree”, “disagree” or “strongly disagree”. Students reporting that
they strongly agreed or agreed were considered to support scientific enquiry” (OECD,2007; 123)
We see here a clear indication that attitudes regarding science, The Interest in Science, are
measureable, things in themselves, which can be an object for study and put on a scale. This
trait of mathematical measurement of The Chimera I will label The Measure.
Another important frame of the PISA06 Survey is the assessments goal in bonding The
Measure with the self - the student’s self-concept and self-efficacy regarding Science (OECD,
2007; 135-138). This bonding enacts a causality, which results with questions in the survey
regarding responsibility and awareness of environmental issues - larger issues of moral
regarding science and it’s applications (OECD, 2007, 155-162). This trait of The Chimera, I
label The Morality of course closely related to pedagogy, which is its tool of disciplination.
The last trait this article aims to explore is found is both the above traits, and is such the
visible head of the Chimera. Interest in Science is connected to enjoyment, motivation and
learning and various other concepts, which is given an intrinsic psychological meaning (OECD,
2007; 139-150) This psychological trait of The Chimera, I label The Mind.
The concept of Interest in Science in PISA06 Survey, The Chimera, is thus transversed by three
different discourses and traits. The head of the contemporary chimera is The Mind, the proud
regal Lion’s head of neuropsychological causality, it is dominating and controlling the body,
which is The Measure – the workings of psychometrics supporting the logos of the head.
Finally the tail the proverbial hidden trait is The Morality, the steering intrinsic morality of
the good of science for the betterment of the world, ecological awareness. All components are
perfectly linked and entwined, not like earlier transformations of The Chimera, but this frame
is bereaved of notions on power and capital and their connection to Interest in Science and
the overall Science dispotif.
After an archaeological and genealogical exploration of the concept and statement Interest in
Science I will return to the ramifications of what the composition of The Chimera means
regarding the way we are allowed to perceive the concept of Interest in Science.
Herbart’s mathematical psychology- The Measurement in The Soul
One could argue that the concept and especially the statement Interest in Science dates back
as long as the human culture has known science, thereby stretching an historical analysis back
to the early Greeks and their notions on physis (Helge Kragh Kosmos og Kaos, xxx); since the
scope of this article lies in the contemporary form of Interest in Science I will start my
argument and construction of the chimera by showing how Newtonian causality first
intersected with the concept.
Prenzel and Krapp takes Johann Friedrich Herbart theory of education and mathematicalpsychology as the starting point for the concept of Interest in Science (Krapp & Prenzel,
2011); one must bear in mind that a fixing a starting point for a discourse or serious
statement is like tracing a line in water, it will always be an arbitrary genesis as there is not
‘one discourse’ or statement producing a such (Foucault, 1972). Why Prenzel and Krapp in
their overview of research in Interest in Science discursively states Herbart as the root of the
Interest in Science concept is though enough to warrant my analytic demarcation point in an
examination of Herbart and the practices following this discourse.
Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) provides a model of the mind, which uses
mathematical models akin to Sir Isaac Newton’s model of the solar system. Herbart has
discovered a way to expand the notion of Science and it’s laws and regularities into the
contemporary science of psychology, which at that time wasn’t regarded as one of the serious
sciences (Foucault, xXX). Many discourses were attempting in the late eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century to expand mathematics into the science of man (Leary, 1980), but
psychology at the time of Herbart was still a dominion of the Soul (Herbart 1890) and before
Wundt’s revolutionary attempt to create a experimental psychology (Kuhn, xxx) Herbart’s
intent was as an apprentice of Kant to expand his notion of predicting physical events both in
the body and in the brain to actual mental events, which was going beyond Kant’s explicit
denial of a mathematical psychology(Leary, 1980). It is interesting to note that a rival
discourse to Herbart’s mathematical-psychology was the biological/physiological-psychology
(xx), but I will show that Herbart’s notion of Interest in Science was absent of this biologicalphysiological dimension; first later (with Berlyne) the bio-phys. conceptualization is seen in a
transformation of The Chimera and it still takes more transformations to reach the current
contemporary form as seen in PISA06 Survey.
Herbart’s key notion was that a Vorstellung (which could roughly be translated to a sense,
presentation or idea of) could be measured and predicted with mathematical
accuracy(Herbart 1890). A Vorstellung is for the mind, what the atom is for the physical
world; the consciousness is composed of combinations of these Vorstellungen behaving
according to Newtonian mechanical laws. Herbart distanced himself from Fichte’s concept of
Self1 in that the notion of Self first had to be developed in the childhood, thus it could not be
the nucleus of origin, hence the concept of Vorstellung. The mental unit of Vorstellung entails
thoughts, emotions, visual images, ‘inner speech/voice’ and emotions, it is defined by a
measureable strength in the consciousness reflecting the clarity of the Vorstellung (Herbart
1890)(Boudewijnse, 1999). Herbart’s concept of Vorstellung is inspired by his education in
music and the concept of ‘’tonelehre’; from music for instance he got the notion of strength
and how Vorstellungen could cancel each other out, but it is also with concepts from tonelehre
that he goes beyond Newtonian concepts regarding opposing Vorstellungen (Herbart
1890)(Boudewijnse, 1999) In his mechanical and abstract explanation of the behaviour of
Vorstellungen he gives an explanation how one Vorstellung helps another one into existence
or is fused by it, thereby in effect showing how sequential learning is attained – through
repetition (Herbart 1890)(Boudewijnse, 1999)
.
1
Johann Gotlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Herbart’s mathematical psychology and his following writings goes beyond a desire to predict
and measure the mind on a abstract and theoretical level, he moves his theories and concepts
into the practice of education and pedagogy. The writings of Herbart thus follow the function,
which other related discourses are taking in the eighteenth century by fusing the respective
sciences with The Dictum of Kant2 and the mathematics of Newton/Leibniz (Leary, 1980) In
his writings Herbart introduces the concept of pedagogical tact (Pädagogischer Takt), which is
a solution to unite the problematic duality of educational theory and educational
practice(Herbart 1890). The duality is due to the problem of good and bad practice, and a
good practice is dependant on a scientific approach to pedagogy and educational theory
(Herbart 1890). In this there is a quite clear demarcation line posited by Herbart, that an
educational science may never follow the asserted causality of the natural sciences, hence the
need for a concept between theory and practice – pedagogical tact. In the concept of
pedagogical tact the educational theory gives you a choice of action, but tact makes you make
‘the right choice’. To further elaborate on this morality in his theories, which is very much in
line with Kantian morality, Herbart introduces another concept – Aesthetic necessity, which is
the judgement of a specific situation, still a judgement of taste in kantian terms and subjected
to the rules of such, but one that the educator can support and improve upon(Kienskel) The
improvement of the educators and pupils perception of the world is the cornerstone of
Herbart’s educational and pedagogical theory one that is very much in line with his
mathematical concept of Vorstellung and how it evolves. (Herbart)(Boudewijnse, 1999(Leary
1980) )(Kien) The notion of repetition and attentiveness is therefore the link between the
mathematic-psychology of Herbart and his educational and pedagogical theory. Implemented
in Herbart’s project of uniting mathematics, psychology and educational/pedagogical theory
there is also the grand failure of the enterprise, he didn’t manage to show how the micro level
of his mathematical-psychology was visible in the macro level of schooling and education
(Boudewijnse, 1999)(Herbart) This Dark Side of Pedagogy (Herbart) was attributed to
general problems regarding education and Herbart’s solution was to emphasize to build
learning on what already have been learnt – one could also see this problem as a general
problem of Science
2
Any true science must be mathematical.
The Chimera of Herbart – A Trinity of Failed Causality
The Chimera of Herbart’s Interest in Science is composed of mathematics, psychology and
educational/pedagogical theory. This trinity of measurement, soul (psychology) and moral
(pedagogy) is The Interest in Science concepts proverbial head, body and tail.
In this historical Episteme the proverbial head of the concept of Interest in Science, openly
and proudly displayed, is thus the regal mathematical Lion of causality and encompasses the
totality of the soul. The goat’s body and main functioning of the concept of Interest in Science
is a notion of psychology not founded in biology and physiology, but in Vorstellung and
abstract notions of repetition, fusion and attention – still in the nomenclature of Soul. The tail
of the chimera, the hidden and steering manifestation of the construct, is morality emphasized
by educational and pedagogical theory. The ménage au trois of Herbart shows how Interest in
Science is intersected and transversed by other statements; the concept of Interest in Science
is in the eighteenth century not explained as a ‘thing in itself’, but a measureable, internal
structure, which should be developed according to a judgement of taste. This Chimera
remains though a creature of mythos in the various discourses of the century, and with
Herbart’s Dark Side of Pedagogy we are witnesses to a failure of linkage between the various
parts of the beast. The relation between measurement, soul and morality is never fully
realized in the discourse of Herbart
German education in the 18th -19th century – A Prussian Discipline
The three discursive statements forming The Chimera of Herbart’s notion of Interest in
Science The measurement, The Soul and The Moral is the discursive dimension of the
construct in the following I will explore the non-discursive – the negative – formations, that
the statement is enacted within and without. [under construction]
Dewey’s Interest vs. Effort – The fragmentarization of the concept
Krapp and Prenzel states Dewey as having adopted Herbart’s ideas regarding of Interest in
Science (Krapp 2011) Specifically it is the text Interest and Effort in Education (Dewey 1913)I
turn to see how the statement Interest in Science is composed in 1913 in the United States
and why it is important in a modern contemporary review to include a historization from
Herbart to Dewey regarding the concept Interest in Science (William James is only mentioned
in a side note, so Dewey is clearly the carrier of the torch from the nineteenth century). The
editor’s wrapping of the text shows us the reason for Dewey importance – failure of the spirit
of The Prussian School Regime by repetition and physical disciplination:
“To this end we have established a compulsory school attendance age, forbidden
child labour, and provided administrative machinery for executing these legal
guarantees of the rights of children. Yet, a guarantee of school attendance will
never of itself fulfil the purposes of state education. The parent and the attendance
officer, reinforced by the police power of the state, can guarantee only one thing, the physical presence of the child at school. It is left to the teacher to insure his
mental attendance by a sound appeal to his active interests.” 3
A dichotomy, perhaps if one is glib due to experience, has shown itself between physical
attendance and mental attendance and the editor appoints Dewey’s thinking as the solution to
the problem. One cannot refrain from drawing a parallel here to Foucault’s work on both the
prison and the asylum, which undergoes a similar transformation from the physical
disciplination to an inner mental form of disciplination (Foucault xx).
[under construction]
Berlyne’s Curiosity & Arousal – A new measureable psychology
[under construction]
Henry Suzzalo, President of the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (editor) in
Interest and Effort in Education, John Dewey, 1913.
3
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