Toiling in Pasteur's quadrant: the contributions of N.L. Gage to educational psychology☆
Introduction
N.L. Gage has been one of the most consistent scholars in our discipline. He has made clear what he seeks. He seeks no less than a scientific basis for the art of teaching (e.g., Gage, 1978). Why not accept that teaching is a practical art? After all, teachers cannot strictly follow formulas, rules, or algorithms. Teaching regularly calls for individualization, improvisation, creativity, and emotional sensitivity. In short, teaching requires artistry and to complicate the picture that artistry must be displayed in real-time and in public settings. For many scholars, these are conditions of employment that preclude assistance from science. But N.L. Gage consistently has found such despair unwarranted.
It matters greatly whether a mode of inquiry and a body of knowledge have scientific standing. Scientific method is recognized as the major avenue into valid knowledge about certain important aspects of the world. The victories of the natural sciences have led us to seek similar achievements in the world of human affairs by using the same general methods (Gage, 1994, p. 565).
But what do we mean by scientific knowledge? [It is] first, knowledge obtained empirically, through observation and experience, in ways that are public, that is communicable and, in principle, available to other persons with the necessary training and facilities. Second, scientific knowledge is relatively precise, clearly defined, obtained with reliable instruments or procedures. Third, scientific knowledge is relatively objective in that it is determined by the data more than by the investigators preferences, hopes, biases, or personal advantage. Fourth, scientific knowledge is replicable in that one investigators findings can be obtained by other investigators who have the requisite competencies. Fifth, scientific knowledge becomes relatively systematic and cumulative in that it develops into an organized system of nonfalsified propositions, or a theoretical framework. Sixth, scientific knowledge makes possible the understanding or explanation of relationships between variables, the prediction with better-fit-than-chance accuracy of the value of one variable on the basis of earlier knowledge of another variable, and control or improvement of one variable as a result of the deliberate change in another variable. Finally, scientific knowledge has survived attempts to falsify it (Gage, 1992, p. 9).
Armed with examples, Gage points out that scientific investigations meeting these criteria have been employed numerous times in the field of education and they yield findings that have the characteristics he finds so admirable in all scientific work (see, Gage (1994), Gage (1999)). Moreover, Gage notes, these empirical findings can be intentionally employed to improve teaching. And that is precisely the goal that N.L. Gage set for himself and for the field of educational psychology. Professor Gage has toiled a lifetime in Pasteuris Quadrant (Stokes, 1997).
Motivation to engage in the work of science may be thought of as having its roots in one of four quadrants. Imagine a 2×2 table. One dimension of the table is labelled ‘The quest for fundamental understanding’ and has the values ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The other dimension of the table is labelled ‘consideration of use’ and it too has the values ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ The cell at the intersection of ‘no’ and ‘no’, where motivation to do science is not directed toward understanding or toward use, is empty. It is a cell where there is no motivation to engage in science. The other cells are far more interesting.
The cell where the quest for understanding is paramount, a ‘yes’, and where there is no concern for the use of that knowledge, a ‘no’, is characterized by the work of the “pure” scientist, say a Niels Bohr. The cell where there is no particular concern for understanding, a ‘no’, but a tremendous interest in using our scientific findings, a ‘yes’, is the realm of applied research. This is where we would place the work of Thomas Edison. The cell of most interest to us here is the cell where there is a great interest in scientific understanding, a ‘yes’, and an equally great interest in doing the work of science so that it is useful, also a ‘yes.’ The “yes/yes” cell is where Pasteur toiled. It is where there is a search for usefulness (say a vaccine to cure small pox, or the process we now call pasteurization) and a search for deep understanding of the processes involved (the germ theory, which revolutionized medicine). This is also the quadrant in which N.L. Gage has worked. His research is designed to improve teaching and he also searches for understanding of the deeper processes involved in teaching, learning, and education. He studies teacher behaviour, to improve it, and he works on a theory of teaching, to integrate that empirical work into a grander framework.
These postmodern times have revealed flaws in the conceptions of the science that were held earlier in the last century, at the time when N.L. Gage received his training and decided to privilege science over all other ways of knowing. But to admit that science is flawed and that a reconceptualization of science was needed does not require that we abandon science, as some have concluded. Rather, postpositivist philosophy of science, as described by Phillips and Burbules (2000) and admired by N.L. Gage, can meet philosophic standards for establishing reliable knowledge and quieting the critics of science. Postpositivism provides the context for scientific, rational claims about causal relationships in the field of research on teaching.
Gage's empirical work and his theoretical defense of scientific research on teaching have been tenacious and are, in no small part, the basis of our contemporary faith that there is a role for traditional science in educational research, in particular, and the social sciences, in general (Gage, 1996). It is Professor Gage's achievements as an empirical scientist and as a defender of the role of science in education that brings him the respect of the community of educational psychologists. But I think that he is honored in our field as well for his decency, humour, affection, unfailing optimism, and for his mentoring of, and friendship with many other scholars in the field. The modeling of exemplary professional and personal behaviour is what distinguishes Nathaniel Lees Gage.
Section snippets
Background
As I write (Winter, 2004), Nathaniel Lees Gage (Nate, to his friends) has been associated with psychology for over 65 years! For Nate, the journey to Pasteur's quadrant was not always clear. He was born in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York City, in 1917. His parents had independently emigrated from Poland as young adults, arriving around 1907. They met and married in the United States. Nate's father was a member of the working class by ideology as well as circumstance. He
An introduction to psychology
During his first quarter at the University of Minnesota N.L. Gage took the introductory psychology course, taught under the direction of Richard M. Elliott, who as chair had put together one of the country's distinguished psychology departments. Nate received a perfect score on the mid-term exam, and on that basis was invited to join a special section of the course, taught by a brand new instructor from Harvard. This bright and productive scholar that everyone was talking about, but whom Nate
Graduate school in educational psychology
Meanwhile, a socially liberal professor who had immigrated from Germany as a boy, and who had taken a doctorate in educational psychology at the University of Iowa, needed more graduate students in his new doctoral programme at a different University. He approached his alma mater and was provided with the papers of all the applicants for assistantships at Iowa, one of the ten institutions that had turned Nate down. The energetic, productive, personable, and unprejudiced H.H. Remmers offered
University life
After 1 year on the Purdue faculty Nate was hired in 1948 by the University of Illinois in what became its famous Bureau of Educational Research. Another bright new hire that year, with whom Nate at first shared an office, was Lee J. Cronbach. Cronbach's brilliance in psychometric work helped Nate to decide to move away from that area, and he moved closer to social–psychological research and studies of teaching. In his autobiography, Cronbach (1989) reports that he and Nate decided to split up
Contribution One: The
In the fall of 1955 the AERA committee on Teacher Effectiveness prepared the first outline for a Handbook of Research on Teaching. A version of this work was submitted to AERA's council in 1956, and was greeted with lukewarm approval. There was fear that such a volume might compete with the third edition of AERA's Encyclopedia of Educational Research. Nate was asked to work on the proposal some more and to try to find funding. In 1957, with the help of the philosopher B. Othanel Smith, a small
Contribution Two: The Stanford Center for Research and Development in Teaching
Lee Cronbach, who had moved to Stanford in 1964, opined to Nate in the summer of 1964 that the future of educational research in America would belong to the universities that won the relatively well-funded research and development centres then being established by the US Office of Education. Following Cronbach's suggestion, Nate and his colleagues, especially Robert N. Bush, developed a proposal for such a centre. With the publication of the Handbook in 1963, and the infusion of large amounts
Contribution Three: The Dulles Conference
In the Spring of 1973, Nate supported an idea put forth by Ned Flanders, namely, the idea of coordinating planning among centres and laboratories in the USA interested in investigating classroom teaching and learning. Flanders and Gage discussed this idea with Garry L. McDaniels and Marshal S. Smith, who were then with the National Institute of Education. At their request, Nate moved to Washington for eight months to plan a conference to formulate research agendas in teaching. Beginning in
Some additional contributions
These brief descriptions of Gage's influence on our field are not the sum of the man. Other contributions of N.L. Gage should also be noted.
Defending the role of science in educational research
Gage's two monographs, The Scientific Basis of the Art of Teaching (1978), and Hard Gains in the Soft Sciences (Gage, 1985), both serve as carefully reasoned defenses of process-product research, teacher effectiveness studies, the usefulness of scientific approaches to what must always be a moral craft, and the potential of educational psychology for informing practice. In later writings it appears that these ideas have been refined, made more forceful and more generalizable, and also tied
Theory and the Process–Product Paradigm of Research
Nate's continuing defense of the importance of theory in his monographs and journal articles gave rise to a descriptive theory by him for thinking about research on teaching, and the place within this domain of his preferred kind of research, process–product or teacher effectiveness research (Gage, 1999). This descriptive theory is presented here as Fig. 1, a framework in which to situate any particular research in the broad domain of research on teaching.
This framework defines six categories
Methodology
Beginning with H.H. Remmers, Nate has always had an interest in methodological issues. This showed in his early work on theory building, research reviewing, and meta-analysis, a technique which Nate quickly embraced and championed (Gage, 1978). He sees meta-analysis as a remarkable tool for making sense out of the (often) conflicting small-scale studies that characterize so much of educational research. More recently he has argued for the compatibility of qualitative and quantitative approaches
Social concerns
As a social psychologist with expertise in measurement, Gage could, and did, provide reasoned and elegant counterpoints to the strong genetic hypothesis that had been put forth to account for racial differences in IQ (Gage (1972a), Gage (1972b)). His scholarly and influential rebuttals to William Shockley's volatile pieces on race and learning helped to weaken those arguments.
Scholarly communication
There is a textbook co-authored by N.L. Gage that has been credited with changing textbook writing in the field of educational psychology through its inclusion of chapters on the psychology of teaching, as well as the traditional chapters on the psychology of learning. The success of this text—now in its 6th edition and 25th year—is credited by many in the field for having influenced other writers to make more explicit the research on teaching and the linkage between psychology and practice. It
A model for students
An enduring, but less visible contribution to our field has to do with the ethical standards, scholarship, and habits of mind displayed by N.L. Gage. They have influenced many of the talented educational psychology students who have graduated from Stanford over a 35 year period. As one example of his modeling of scholarly behaviour, I would like to note that after retirement, he took to going to classes in philosophy, and reading works on hermeneutics, in order better to understand the
Conclusion
At the conclusion of this exegesis of N.L. Gage's contributions to educational psychology, we should also acknowledge the contribution of Margeret Burrows Gage to N.L. Gage's professional accomplishments. Maggie, trained in child development at the Merrill-Palmer school insured, during the raising of four children and thereafter, that Nate had the time and the emotional support to devote his attention to teaching and teacher education research. Thus, a host of graduate students and the field of
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2013, Developments in Educational Psychology, Second EditionPasTeur's quadrant as the bridge linking rigor with relevance
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This tribute was originally written in 2001 and appeared in B.J. Zimmerman (Ed.) Educational Psychology: A Century of Contributions, a project of Division 15 of the American Psychological Association. This version, reproduced with the permission of David Berliner, B.J. Zimmerman and the APA, has been lightly edited by S. Delamont to emphasise the research on teaching and teacher education.