Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Evolution

Extinction is a scary fate. In academe, it is no different. Darwin's theory of evolution described the struggle of organisms to stay alive by changing and adapting to the real world. Once a genetic trait, expressed as a physical or behavioral characteristic, adapts and proves successful, that trait is given another opportunity to propagate itself to the next generation. A gene that fails to adapt to the real world dies. The academic equivalent to this is stated brilliantly and elegantly by Alfred North Whitehead: "Theoretical ideas should always find important applications within the pupil's curriculum ... [this doctrine] contains within itself the problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it from being inert." An idea that is connected to the real world and allowed to interact with other ideas, thrives and connects itself to other ideas. One that remains inert, however, loses its vitality. Inert ideas are disconnected ones. They are evolutionary dead ends. Whitehead rightly argued that we must, "eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kill the vitality of our modern curriculum ... instead of unity, we offer children algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows, History, from which nothing follows." I would say that academics face this challenge too. How do I, as an educational psychologist, take my research about psychological constructs that your average person has never heard of, and connect it to things that have pragmatic value?

As a doctoral student, I had a much less well-developed idea about how to do that. Now that I'm a postdoc, I'm seeing a bit more of how my research interests can connect. Though my advisor has passed away, I've inherited his academic DNA. His was a prominent voice in self-efficacy. This is something I've inherited. He found amazing applications of self-efficacy in educational contexts. Mostly with writing among middle school students (his passion). His scholarly work is cited over and over again. His work is no evolutionary dead end. As every newly minted Ph.D. discovers, I had to learn to take what I had inherited and find new ways to make it continue living. In one sense, I am very much so of my advisor's academic genetic composition (I also study self-efficacy). But in another sense, I must evolve--adjust to my surroundings, and find new applications for my work.

So what speaks "modern day" more than virtual learning environments? How about applying psychological constructs to the world of emerging technologies? Can this be a way that I continue propagating these academic genes? Piaget argued that knowledge becomes "a system of transformations that become progressively adequate." Or, as Darwin would say of species, they become progressively more fit to survive.

As an academic in the social sciences, it is becoming more and more important to "receive external funding." In other words, get grant money. Why? So that I can pay for all my research needs without asking the university to chip in. Universities are in a tough spot financially now, and to relieve that burden, they "encourage" their faculty to get money. The university where I am working now, for example, gets 68% of the money that professors acquire from grants! That's HUGE! Elite U, however, is more the exception than the rule. This is how academics prevent themselves from being inert. They write up research grants and find ways to make their research interests applicable to the most pressing concerns we face today. And by spending countless amounts of time writing these grants, we hope that one day a large funding agency tells us, "we like your ideas and would like to fund your research." The trick is, of course, to find the "cash value" (thank you, William James) of your ideas and to sell it. Selling ideas is not something doctoral students are ever trained to do. Defending ideas? Oh sure, no problem. But selling is a different story. And so begins my marketing education ... I've got 2 years to learn to be a salesman.