A Chaotic Paradigm:
An Alternative World View
of the Foundations of Educational Inquiry

Table of Contents

This thesis, then, is critical analysis of the debate over the alternative paradigms, the multi-layered models of world views that form a network of ideas from philosophy to classroom practice for curriculum and instruction. This study bases the general grounds for debate in Kuhn's ideas about scientific revolution. It fixes the root problem of the current dominant and alternative models in curriculum and instruction on difficulties in understanding and dealing with interaction and complexity. It describes recent discoveries in understanding interaction and complexity that were made possible in part by computer technology. These conceptual advances, chaos theory and the study of chaotic dynamics, in turn has lead to computer technology driving new developments across a wide range of sciences. It finds a compelling match between these new concepts for interaction and complexity and the interaction and complexity of curriculum and instruction. The study suggests new areas of research for educational experimentalists, yet suggests reasons to re-think and reject aspects of strict experimental programs of research that seek long term prediction and control and quantitative confirmation and/or falsification. It instead proposes an integration of the holism and self-organization of prior reconceptualist programs of inquiry with chaos theory.

This server shares this work as four chapters, a web site and a bibliography. Since the original writing was completed in 1989, the application concepts of chapter five have been transformed into a continually expanding web site. This Web page provides a table of contents for the entire work. Each Chapter will contains its own Table of Contents and links to the other chapters. Single spaced, all the related files of the first four chapters add up to approximately 111 pages of print.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE - THE NATURE OF THE STUDY, THE PARADIGM PROBLEM

• Assessment of the Current Paradigms in Education
• Mental Provisioning
• An Ecological Problem
• Problem and Hypotheses
• Hypotheses Rationale
• Foundational Relationships
• The Educational Paradigm Framework
• The Industrial Age Framework
• New Directions. Reconceptualist Axioms
• Chaos and Determinism
• Limitations and Guidelines
• Organization of the Study

CHAPTER TWO. SYSTEM BEHAVIOR AND THE CURRENT EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS

• The Issue of Interaction - Four Views
• Philosophical Pragmatism
• Research Reproducibility
• Research Quandary
• Turbulent Practice
• A Taxonomy of System Interaction Behavior
• Definitions of Determinism
• D-1. Simple Interaction Models
• D-2. Complex Interaction Models
• D-3. Indeterministic Interaction Models
• D-1. Simple Model Subdivisions
• The Convergent/Divergent or Price's Paradox
• D-1. Systems
• Fixed point.
• Limit cycle.
• Torus.
• Convergent Taxonomy and Social and Educational Inquiry
• Fixed Point Perception
• Social and Statistical Science
• Educational Science and Counter Movements
• The mainstream.
• Counter-movement and negation.
• Limit Cycle and Torus Perception
• Overview

CHAPTER III - SYSTEM BEHAVIOR: THE NEW RANGE

• The Divergent Taxonomy - The Theory
• Definitions and Requirements
• Chaos
• Computer indeterminism.
• Nonlinearity.
• Nonequilibrium and energy.
• Sensitivity.
• Fractal.
• Universality. The laws of chaos.
• Unpredictability.
• Not chaos.
• The Taxonomy. Three Routes Into Chaos
• Comparison of Paradigm Theories
• Chaos Research Across Many Disciplines
• Astronomy/Engineering/Chemistry
• Biology
• The Brain
• Sociology
• Social Systems
• Organizational Systems
• Research Difficulties in Chaotic Dynamics
• Comparisons of Research in the Paradigms
• Professional Practice and Chaotic Dynamics
• Comparing Paradigms for Professional Practice
• Synopsis of the Compelling Claim

CHAPTER FOUR - INTEGRATION

• The Industrial Age Model
• The Chaotic Model
• The Archetype
• The tidal bore.
• Soliton theory.
• Dissipative Structures Research
• Physics - Benard cells.
• Chemistry.
• Biology.
• Brains.
• Organizations.
• Summary.
• Fractals
• The Chaotic Model Revisited
• Education
• The Developmentalists
• Functionalists and Structuralists
• Intuition
• Instructional Design and Technology
• The Taxonomy Revisited
• Inquiry

CHAPTER FIVE - APPLICATION

REFERENCES

FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Educational Paradigm Model
Figure 1-2. Industrial Age Paradigm
Figure 1-3. Chaotic Dynamics Paradigm

Figure 2-1. Krathwohl's Models of Interaction
Figure 2-2. Violato's Four Models of Person-Situation Interaction
Figure 2-3. Ease of Solution (Hall & Day)
Figure 2-4. State Space
Figure 2-5. Taxonomy of Interaction Chart
Figure 2-6. Convergent Attractor States
Figure 2-7. Attractor Table

Figure 3-1. Divergent Attractor States
Figure 3-2. NTM (a Nontrivial Machine)
Figure 3-3. Possible NonTrivial Machine States.

Figure 4-1. Industrial Age Paradigm
Figure 4-2. Industrial Age Paradigm
Figure 4-3. Chaotic Dynamics Paradigm
Figure 4-4 Water drip data
Figure 4-5 Circle-Star Communication Comparison
Figure 4-6. Relationships in the Chaotic Paradigm
Figure 4-7. The Emergent Paradigm

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Copyright Notice

(c) Copyright by Robert Stuart Houghton,1989.
All Rights Reserved.