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Citation:
Kenneth R. Conklin, "Educational Evaluation and Intuition," EDUCATIONAL THEORY, XXXIV, 3 (March, 1970), pp. 323-332. Also reprinted in Anna C. Fults, Rowena Lutz, and Jacquie Eddleman, READINGS IN EVALUATION (Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1972).
Reprinted from
The Educational Forum, March, 1970
Educational Evaluation and Intuition
Kenneth R. Conklin
Introduction
One of my students in a course on educational
psychology came to my
office with a problem. She said, "You
have divided our class into small
groups, and each student in each group
is required to give a research report to
his group. After the report has been
given, the other students in the group
are supposed to decide what grade the
report will get. But I am doing research
on a complicated topic, and the other
students in my group will not have done
any research on this topic. Therefore I
don't think that they will have any reasonable
basis for grading me, since I
know much more than they know about
this topic. Won't you please grade my
project, Dr. Conklin, so it will get the
grade it really deserves?"
I resisted the temptation to discuss
the question whether there is a grade
which something really deserves (although this question is a most interesting one). Instead, I tried to show my
student that when she becomes a teacher
she will sometimes give grades to students
who have done research on topics
which she is not herself well acquainted
with. I mentioned several closely related
problems of evaluation, including
the question as to how the typical citizen
in a democracy can reasonably be expected
to exercise intelligent control
over the formation of policy by the experts.
Since the time of this discussion I
have given prolonged consideration to a
group of questions similar to the one
raised by my student. The present paper
is an attempt to describe these questions
and their interrelationships. All such
questions are particular versions of an
ancient and fundamental philosophical
question about our knowledge of other
people's knowledge. After the questions
have been described, we shall explore
the major answers which can be (and
have been) given. Finally, we shall see
that one cannot be satisfied with certain
methods of educational evaluation unless
one presupposes the truth of certain
philosophical doctrines about the nature
of knowing.
The Questions and Their Interrelationships
How can someone know that someone
else knows something, without actually
----------
If there is one dogma above all others that influences
educational theory and research in this
country, it is that all educational concepts and
discourse be explicit and refer unambiguously to
empirically identifiable entities. In this article,
KENNETH CONKLIN examines this dogma as it
manifests itself in the problem of evaluating
what one does not himself know. The author is
Assistant Professor ol Philosophy ol Education
at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
Hc did his work for the Ph.D. at the University of Illinois and is a member ol Kappa Delta Pi. Although a relative newcomer to the field, he
has already published a number of thoughtful articles in the philosophy of education.
[end page 323 / start page 324]
knowing that thing himself? This is the
general question which is raised by such
other questions as: How can a teacher
grade a student on some topic when the
student's knowledge on that topic goes
beyond the teacher's knowledge on that
topic? How can a normal teacher evaluate
a gifted child? How can the ordinary
citizen evaluate the expert's judgment
on issues requiring expertise?
As a matter of fact, teachers do give
grades to students who have done research
into topics which the teacher is
not himself well acquainted with. This
may happen if a teacher deliberately assigns
such topics, if a student is allowed
to choose his own topic, or if a student
probes an assigned topic to a depth
which exceeds the teacher's knowledge.
Perhaps the very best assignments are
the ones that turn out this way.
In any case of this type we may ask
the following questions: Can the teacher
know whether the student has a particular
piece of knowledge? Can the teacher
know whether the student has a general
knowledge of the topic? Can the teacher
judge the quality of the student's particular
or general knowledge? Perhaps a
general knowledge of a topic can be
equated with having a sufficient number
of particular pieces of knowledge. However,
it seems that knowledge of a topic
includes abiiity to coordinate and
synthesize separate pieces of knowldge
so that intellectual navigation is possible.
It may well be that a gifted child is
superior to his teacher in coordinating
and synthesizing particular pieces of
knowledge which both student and
teacher have.
For the sake of simplicity, we shall
analyze just one question among those
raised so far: Can a teacher know that a
student knows something (i.e., something
definite)? The analysis of this
question should be taken as a paradigm
which could easily be applied to all the
other questions (e.g., Can the citizen
know that an expert knows something
and is truly worthy of being called an
expert?). If the reader finds the next
few paragraphs boring or tedious, he
may skip to the end of this section
where the results will be summarized.
Can a teacher know that student
knows something (definite)? This question
is perfectly general, in the sense
that we may ask it every time a student
might knorv something, whether or not
the student's knowledge goes beyond
the teacher's. If the student's knowledge
in fact does not exceed the teacher's, we
will probably be willing to answer the
question "yes" without much hesitation -- the teacher who knows X will recognize
as correct the student's assertion of
X. (We shall not here explore the problem
of how to elicit the student's assertion
of X without teaching him X in the
process).
If the student's knowledge does go
beyond his teacher's, we are not so sure
about answering the question "yes."
Will the teacher recognize as correct the
student's assertion of X, when the
teacher does not already know X beforehand?
Evidently one way of answering "yes" here is for the student to teach the
teacher! The student's assertion of X, or
perhaps the student's way of asserting
X, may teach the teacher that X is true.
[end page 324 / start page 325]
Then the teacher will be able to recognize
as (having been) correct the student's
assertion of X.
We have now answered "yes" to the
question: Can a teacher know that a student
knows something which the teacher did not know beforehand (but now knows thanks to the student's teaching)? The important question, however, is:
Can a teacher know that a student
knows something even though the
teacher does not (and maybe never will) know that thing? Both questions must
be answered "yes," if there is to be any
reasonable basis for giving credits and
grades for a student's knowledge which
exceeds his teacher's knowledge. The
latter question is not reducible to the
former one, simply because teachers are
not always able to learn the material covered by their students (whether this is due to lack of intelligence or lack of
time is not important here). Perhaps the
most extreme case of this is the doctoral
student whose original research must be
evaluated by professors who have not
themselves done the research. Perhaps
the most politically significant case of
this occurs when the ordinary citizen
must evaluate the work and the pronouncements
of experts.
We discovered that a student's way of
asserting X may teach the teacher that
X is true, thereby enabling a teacher
who formerly did not know X to recognize
as correct the student's assertion of
X. A description of the student's way of
asserting X would provide a method or
rule in answer to the question: How can
a teacher know that a student knows
something which the teacher did not
know beforehand? Any satisfactory answer
to this "How can ..." question
thereby automatically provides a "yes"
answer to the "Can ..." question: Can a
teacher know that a student knows
something which the teacher did not
know beforehand?
In the same way, we might attempt
to provide a "yes" answer to the important
question: Can a teacher know that
a student knows something even though
the teacher does not (and maybe never
will) know that thing? A "yes" answer
would be automatic if we could provide
a good answer to the question: How can
a teacher know that a student knows
something which the teacher does not
(and maybe never will) know?
Typically, this last question is answered
by providing a list of criteria for
grading a student's written or oral discourse.
Presumably, if a student's argument
is reasonable and logically consistent,
then it seems the student must
have knowledge of the topic which he is
writing or speaking about. However, we
shall see that the evaluation of a student's
oral or written discourse on X
does not provide any real basis at all for
deciding whether the student knows X
or how well he knows it.
We have asked, "Can a teacher know
that a student knows ... ?" and also, "How can a teacher know that a studeni
knows ... ?" There is another kind of
question, which is philosophically much
deeper than anything mentioned so far:
Why can a teacher know that a student
knows ...? The type of explanation demanded by the "why" question here is
epistemological: we must tell what it is
[end page 325 / start page 326]
about the act of knowing which makes it
possible for a teacher to know that his
student knows something which the
teacher does not (and maybe never
will) know.
It is important to observe that this epistemological "why can" question re-quires
an answer which is independent
of the answers to the previous "can" and "how can" questions. Any "yes" answers
to "can" and any rules or criteria in answer
to "how can" presuppose that there
is a satisfactory epistemological answer
to "why can." If something is so, then
there must be some reason in the nature
of things which explains why it is so.
In summary: We asked whether a
teacher can know that a student knows
something. There seems to be no problem
provided that the teacher already
knows the same thing. It also seems possible
that a student can teach his teacher
something which the teacher did not
know before, thereby enabling the
teacher to know in retrospect that the
student knew that thing. However,
there is no immediate answer when we
ask whether a teacher can know that a
student knows something even though
the teacher does not (and maybe never
will) know that thing. This question is
important because a teacher sometimes
must give grades and credits under conditions
where he lacks the time or the
intelligence to learn the material, the
knowledge of which the student is being
graded on. If, as we hope, a teacher can
know that a student knows something
even though the teacher does not (and
maybe never will) know that thing,
then we would like to find out how the
teacher can know that the student knows.
Certainly if there is a rule or criterion
whereby the teacher can know that the
student knows, then we are assured that
the teacher can in fact know that the student
knows. Finally, we wish to inquire
why a teacher can know that a student
knows. We wish to find out what it is
about the act of knowing which makes it
possible for a teacher to know that his
student knows something (even if the
teacher does not and maybe never wiil
know that thing).
Some Answers and Some Difficulties
When giving credits and grades, the
usual practice is to receive from a student
some piece of physical evidence
which is thought to demonstrate the existence
and quality of his knowledge.
The student may speak (vibrations of
air are physical things), he may write
(marks on paper), or he may produce a
piece of apparatus. In any event, the
teacher uses his physical senses to detect
the evidence produced by the student.
A leap of faith may then be made.
The teacher interprets what he thinks is
the meaning of the evidence, and the
teacher infers that the student must
have intended that meaning in order to
be able to produce the evidence. But
both the interpretation of the meaning
and the inference that the student intended
that meaning are subject to dispute
and are in some sense private affairs
forever closed to public scrutiny.
Some philosophers (empiricists)
might argue that every occasion of
grade-giving requires physical evidence
[end page 326 / start page 327]
to be reasonable, and that the physical
evidence alone is a sufficient basis for
giving grades. Philosophers who hold
the opposite position (idealists) would
say that every occasion of grade-giving
requires correct interpretation and evaluation
of the student's intended meaning
in order to be reasonable; and such
philosophers might go still further by
suggesting that correct interpretation
and evaluation of a student's intended
meaning must ultimately be made independently
of all physical evidence and
might reasonably be made without any
such evidence at all.
Certainly it is clear that teachers do in
fact almost always require students to
produce some kind of physical evidence.
It has even become fashionable to define
"I.Q." "passing grade" and other such
entities in terms of the score a student
achieves on a test. The empiricist would
say that the concept "passing grade" can
have no meaning beyond the fact that a
student must have achieved a certain
score on a certain test.
According to the empiricist, the student's
assertion of X is taken as proof
that the student knows X. The student's
way of asserting X may teach the
teacher X in case the teacher did not
formerly know X, thereby enabling the
teacher to know that the student knew
X. The student's assertion of X. and his
way of asserting X, are physical evidences
which comprise the necessary and
sufficient criteria for evaluating whether
and how well the student knows X (acccording
to the empiricist).
There are a number of difficulties
with the empiricist interpretation which make it unacceptable. Imagine the following
three situations:
(1) An animal or a human sits at
a typewriter and hits the keys
at random, accidentally typing: E=mc^2
(2) An animal or a human has been
trained by means of Skinnerian
behavior-shaping to sit at a typewriter
and type: E=mc^2
(3) Albert Einstein sits at a typewriter
and types: E=mc^2
Although these three situations are
obviously different, the physical evidence
is always the same. The product
produced by the typists is certainly the
same: E=mc^2. Even the mannerisms
and superfluous gestures of the typists
may be identical. The empiricist might
successfully distinguish between cases
(1) and (2) by demanding that the
typist "do it again." Thus, knowing X
would be defined as both being able to
assert X and also being able to assert X
upon demand. However, the empiricist
can never distinguish between cases (2)
and (3). Indeed, empiricists who really
take their position seriously (e.g., Skinner)
would say that there is no difference
between cases (2) and (3), except
that case (3) was an outcome of stimulus-response behavior-shaping over a
longer training period where most of
the training was inefficient or superfluous
in producing this particular behavior.
Common sense tells us that the idealist
must be right. A student may guess
correctly on a test without really knowing
the answer. Students commonly
[end page 327 / start page 328]
complain that the test did not really
measure how much they got out of the
course, and they mean more by saying
this than simply that the test did not
cover all the particular pieces of knowledge
they had. We do in fact use one
test rather than others precisely because
the one we use seems to discriminate
better between students whom we acknowledge
to be knowers and students
whom we consider ignorant. Thus, we
do commonly make a distinction between
the possession of knowledge and
the physical evidence which the alleged
knower produces. There is a sense in
which the physical evidence is totally irrelevant
to the question whether the student
has knowledge -- students may
know without producing evidence, and
students may produce evidence without
knowing.
The empiricist has a most effective rebuttal
to all of this. He may say that it
does not matter whether there is such a
thing as knowledge apart from evidence.
Anything which a student gets
out of a course beyond the evidence he
can produce is his own private affair,
which cannot affect other people or be
noticed by them. Whenever anyone interacts
with his environment or with
other people, the interaction is precisely
the production of physical evidence. The
purpose of education is to teach students
how to interact with the environment
and with other people. Therefore,
grades can and should be based entirely
upon the evidence produced by students.
Learning is defined as change of behavior,
so grades should be determined by
behavioral evidence.
The empiricist's argument can be divided
into two parts. First, he claims
that interaction with the environment
or other people is entirely a matter of
physical behavior; second, he claims
that education should be or is by definition
entirely concerned with such interaction.
Both parts of the empiricist's argument
can be challenged. First, we
note the ancient philosophical dispute
concerning the nature of reality: Is reality
entirely physical, or are there non-physical
aspects of reality such as ideas
and values? Some philosophers would
claim that reality is primarily non-physical,
and that every case of interaction involves
a non-empirical transmission of
non-empirical entities. Second, we note
the traditional claim that education
should be concerned not only with interaction,
but with maximum actualization
of potentialities, or self-realization. Indeed,
several highly regarded philosophers
and educators of the past (Plato,
Augustine, Fichte, Froebel), have
claimed that the most important function
of education is to assist the student
in developing his private capacities and
intuititions.
The purpose of this article is not to
settle these profound philosophical debates,
but to point out how these debates
are intimately relevant to the problems
of educational evaluation. To whatever
extent we claim that grades can and
should be determined by the physical
evidence a student produces, to that extent
we must accept the empiricist's arguments
about the nature of interaction
and learning and the purpose of education.
To whatever extent we claim that
[end page 328 / start page 329]
grades cannot or should not be determined
by the physical evidence a student
produces, to that extent we must
accept the idealist's arguments that
knowledge is distinguishable from evidence,
human interaction with people or
environment involves essential non-physical
entitites, and education should
be concerned with private self-actualization.
The dispute between the empiricist
and the idealist may be viewed as a dispute
concerning the correctness of paragraphs
one and two in the present section.
If the idealist makes use of physical
evidence, he does so only in order to
get hints at the student's intended meaning.
Whether the evidence is valid or
not (whether it expresses what it is intended
to express) becomes a separate
problem. Any evaluation of a student's
knowledge made with the help of evidence
must include the assumption that
the evidence accurately expressed the
student's intended meaning, and such an
assumption can be justified only by faith
in the teacher's empathic or intuitive
appreciation of the student's intended
meaning. This power of empathy or intuition
must function whenever evaluation
is done responsibly. The power of
empathy or intuition is always required
to certify the validity of any evidence. In
addition, the power of empathy or intuition
might function alone, without any
physical evidence at all, to determine a
student's intended meaning.
All of the answers given so far in this
section assume either that the teacher already
knows whatever it is which the
student knows, or else the student teaches the teacher by his way of asserting
what he knows. We have not yet
discussed whether, how, and why the
teacher can know that a student knows
something even though the teacher
does not (and mavbe never will) know
that thing. The answers to these questions
are fairly obvious extensions of the
answers to the earlier questions. However,
the empiricist answers will be seen
as inadequate for doing the practical
work of educational evaluation, and this
inadequacy will lend support to the
idealist view.
The empiricist says that because physical
evidence is all there is, the necessary
and sufficient basis for giving credits and
grades is the physical evidence produced
by the student. Learning is a change in
behavior, all knowledge is learned, and
it makes sense to say that someone
knows something only if he is able to
use his senses to "see" and to "say" what it is that he knows. But if the empiricist
is correct, then it must be impossible
for a teacher to know that a student
knows something when the teacher
himself does not (and maybe never
will) know that thing. For if a teacher
does not know something, he will then
not be able to "see" or to "say" that
thing; hence, he will not be able to recognize
it as correct when the student "says" it. The only way out of this difficulty
is for the student to teach it to the
teacher, but this case has been handled
previously and is contrary to our present
assumption that the teacher does not
know X at the time when the teacher
knows that the student knows X.
Since a teacher may lack either the
[end page 329 / start page 330]
time or the intelligence to learn everything
which all his students know and
are to be graded on, the teacher will
then have no reasonable way (according
to the empiricist) to give grades and
credits to students for work which goes
beyond the teacher's knowledge. Original
research could not be evaluated
(e.g., doctoial theses), teachers would
be obliged to confine the activities of
their students to topics on which the
teachers are experts, gifted children
could not be evaluated, and democracy
would be impossible because the ordinary
citizen would be unable to evaluate
the pronouncements and labors of the
experts.
The empiricist may defend his position
by saying that these consequences of
his position are not bad but contain some
open or concealed blessings. Or the empiricist
may say that although the consequences
of his position are undesirable,
there are many facts which are undesirable.
We must accept reality and do our
best to live with it, rather than wishing
away what we dislike. The author of
this paper, however, would suggest that
the consequences of the empiricist position
are bad and need not be tolerated
for the simple reason that the empiricist
position is mistaken.
The idealist view is correct, and has
no difficulty showing how, why, and
that a teacher can know that his student
knows something even though the
teacher does not (and maybe never
will) know that thing. According to the
idealist, the teacher must always rely
upon the power of his empathy or intuition
to certify the validity of any evidence produced by a student. In addition,
the power of empathy or intuition
might function alone, without any evidence
at all, to determine a student's intended
meaning. A teacher might in this
way know the state of a student's
mind. Although the teacher himself
does not know X, he might know that
the student is being honest, that the student
believes what he is saying and is
certain about it, and that the student
would be prepared to defend his belief
with good evidence. Even if the student
never said anything and the teacher was
so ignorant of X as to be unable to call
it X, the teacher might still know that
the student's frame of mind is that of a
knower.
I have claimed that intuition is necessary
to certify that the evidence produced
by a student accurately represents
his intended meaning, and I have
claimed that intuition can be sufficient to
determine a student's intended meaning
even in the absence of any evidence.
Stated more generally, then, intuition is
a way of knowing which transcends all
physical media and allows us to know
something directly (im-mediately). Intuition
does not ordinarily function well
in helping us know scientific facts about
the physical world. But intuition is absolutely
essential for knowing moral
truths, for knowing the intended meaning
of someone's physical products, and
for knowing someone's general personality
or particular state of mind. The
word "empathy" ordinarily means "putting
yourself in the other fellow's
shoes" or "taking on the feelings of the
other guy." Thus, empathy is the power
[end page 330 / start page 331]
of intuition when applied to give knowledge
of someone's state of mind.
An empiricist would claim that there
is no such thing as intuition. Any careful,
scholarly reader of this article
would certainly be entitled to ask how
intuition works. whether there are variations
in the reliabilities of intuitions, and
how to tell good intuitions from bad
ones. These questions deserve to be answered
and have been answered by
many writers, but the answers are far
too long and complex to be considered
here. The interested reader may recall
the following: Plato's theory of knowing
(especially in Meno, Phaedrus, and
the sun, line, and cave allegories in the
Republic), the idealist tradition in German
philosophy, the doctrine of divine
illumination in St. Augustine (see especially
De Magistro), the doctrine of
knowledge by connaturality in the philosophy
of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas,
and Jacques Maritain/1 and the
modes of knowing discussed in oriental
mystic philosophy (especially Zen)./2
Something closely related to intuition is
postulated in gestalt psychology and in
the discussion by sociologists of "verstehen"
as a sociological research technique.
The sociologist Sorokin has investigated
the extent to which various philosophies
and cultures have relied upon
intuition, and he has sketched some of
the typical answers to the above-mentioned
questions concerning the nature
and variable reliability of the intuitive
process./3
Conclusion
Whether or not a student produces
evidence, the teacher must always rely
upon his intuitive appreciation of the
student's frame of mind or intended
meaning. If a student provides evidence
of knowing something, the teacher uses
his intuitive power to certify that the evidence
was not accidental or lucky but
really does come from a student who intended
to produce what was produced.
If a student does not or cannot provide
evidence of knowing something, the
teacher may still evaluate the student's
frame of mind. It is easier for a teacher
to know that a student knows something
if the teacher already knew that thing or
is taught it by the student, but even a
teacher who never knows something
may know that a student knows it. In
any case, the teacher's intuitive evaluation
is fundamentally important.
I do not mean to suggest that teachers
stop asking students for evidence. In a
[end page 331 / start page 332. Three lengthy footnotes which are at the bottom of page 331 in the original publication have been moved to the end of this version of the article]
vocational training program the purpose
of education may well be to enable the
student to produce well-controlled physical
interactions with the environment,
and the grade should be based entirely
on the student's visible performance in
the production of physical evidence. But
to whatever extent a grade is meant to
evaluate a student's private understanding
or appreciation of something, to that
extent the grade must be determined by
the teacher's intuitive insight into the
student's intended meanings and frame
of mind.
The empiricist approach has come to
dominate educational evaluation to such
an extent that many educators never
question its right to dominance. The
"scientific method" has become as dictatorial
and oppressive in modern times as
church dogma was in the Middle Ages.
This paper has attempted to show that a
teacher's intuitive evaluation is fundamentally
important, both in certifying
the validity of empirical evidence and in
judging a student's knowledge when
such evidence is not or cannot be produced.
Teachers should have more faith
in their intuitive judgment of students.
Teachers should be willing to disagree
with test results. Hopefully, a teacher's
increased use of intuitive techniques of
evaluation would stimulate students to
spend less time showing and telling, and
more time learning, feeling, understanding,
and self-actualizing.
[footnotes, which were at the bottom of page 331 in the originsal publication]
1. Aristotle thought that knowledge occurs
when the soul conforms to (takes on the same
form as) the formal cause of what is known.
This doctrine was interpreted by St. Thomas
Aquinas into his doctrine of knowledge by connaturality,
and Aquinas' doctrine has been revived
in modern times by Jacques Maritain.
See
the following books by Maritain:
Approaches to God. Trans. Peter O'Reilly
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954).
The Degrees ol Knowledge. Trans. Bernard
Wall (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
1938).
The Range of Reason (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1952).
Science and Wisdom. Trans. Bernard Wall
(London: The Cantenary Press, 1940).
2. For example, see Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki,
Studies in Zen (New York: Philosophical Library,
1955), Chapter 4, "Reason and Intuition in
Buddhist Philosophy," pp. 85-128.
3. Pitirim Sorokin, Social and Culural Dynamics
(4 vols.; Chicago: American Book Co.,
1937),Yol. IV, Chapter 16 , Section 3, pp.746-764.
!
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