Almen Studieforberedelse og Innovativ Kompetence: En undersøgelse af 1.g'eres brug af skrivning som medie til innovation i fagligt samspil

This thesis makes research into AT²⁸⁷ in the first two years of the new Danish gymnasium (the general upper secondary education), from 2005-2007. I have researched students of the first school year at three schools; one class at each school. The thesis asks three questions of research:

- are the students' innovative skills enhanced in AT?
- what do innovative skills mean in the context of the gymnasium?
- which textual traits in the students' AT-assignments show signs of innovation?

The first part of the thesis defines innovation in the context of the gymnasium. It is also investigated how the political discourse of innovation is consumed from the level of the Ministry of Education to the level of the particular school. The second part establishes a discourse of research in which analysis of interdisciplinary assignments is made possible. In the third part assignments written by students from the three classes are analyzed.

Inspired by Rasmussen (2002) the concept of innovation is developed so that it can be used independently within the three main spheres of society: working life, education and civil life. Itis emphasized that the concept is not only connected with the instrumental rationality of the market. It is also connected with a communicative rationality which corrects to the instrumental rationality of the market. This happens in the field of education and in civil life and is intersubjectively validated in a communicative exchange, having at least two presuppositions: i.e. that no relevant argument is suppressed or excluded by the participants and that no force –except that of the better argument – is exerted. The concept is not only connected with mere survival – it is also connected with emancipation and the creation of civilization. In the innovative process existing theoretical and practical knowledge is stored and new theoretical and practical knowledge is produced and is used for the solution of diagnosed problems. Without this qualification of the concept the study preparatory aspect of the gymnasium is reduced to a question of viewing academic knowledge and competences as the main variable for instrumental rationality on the market, just as the Bildung-aspect is removed. In late modern society Bildung is understood as the appropriation of academic knowledge and competences, the development of personal authority and the application of the academic knowledge and competences to the solution of problems related to the individual, to nature and society.

Students of the gymnasium can hardly be expected to be innovative in an absolute sense, but they can formulate problems and find solutions, and thus change their attitude towards the problems (“private innovation”). This takes place in a system of innovation in the school where the students imitate the work of scholars. The results are validated by the teachers.

How the discourse of innovation of the political level has been consumed on the level of the Ministry of Education and the level of the particular school is then researched. Thereby the thesis exposes the discourse, which is the starting point for the planning and completion of the teaching in AT.

The Danish government positioned itself in a market discourse in its education political manifest “Bedre uddannelse” (“Better Education”) (2002). Innovation is seen as a central parameter of competition. It is emphasized that the students should appropriate an entrepreneurial behavior, because they thereby can ensure the economical, growth which is the condition of maintenance of welfare and the fundamental values of society.

A “resistant reading” (Fairclough 2004) of the government's discourse takes place on the level of the Ministry of Education in the period from 1999 to 2005, which was the period of preparation for the new gymnasium. Since 1850 the Danish gymnasium has been embedded in a discourse that weights Bildung and study preparation and in continuation of these two complementary discourses a double discourse of competence has had hegemony in the preparatory debate: a discourse of science and a discourse of Bildung. The students should be able to act with “personal authority” both when educating themselves further and in civil life. The departmental order of the gymnasium and the curriculum of AT position themselves in this discourse. The concept of innovation is used in both documents, but is not semantically clear. In The aim of the departmental order of the gymnasium the concept is connected with Bildung and personal authority, while in the curriculum of AT it is connected with study preparation and the ability to formulate interdisciplinary problems.

In the second part of the thesis a method is developed that enables analysis of interdisciplinary assignments and establishing if there are signs of innovation in the assignments. The theoretical starting point is sociocultural theory. This theory emphasizes that thinking and innovation are mediated by language – especially by written language. Learning is a linguistic process in which the students partly appropriate the mediating tools of the culture and partly enhance the ability to be innovative. Thus, the human being is innovative by nature. In the context of this thesis innovation conceptualizes the process where the students in written language formulate and solve academic interdisciplinary problems. Therefore the students must master the making of problem statement as a mediating tool. It is a necessary condition for the transcendence given knowledge in the innovative process and the parallel restructuring and enhancement of the cognitive apparatus of the students.

The assignments are realized in the argumentative type of text, which aims at explanation. Clauses in the argumentative type of text are causally connected. Furthermore the assignments are either realized in the genre report or the genre synopsis, which both imitate the scholarly and academic article. The scholarly and academic article positions the writer as a legitimate participant in a scholarly community of discourse. The writer speaks about a scholarly subject or problem in a symmetric dialogue in the specialized language of the community of discourse with the intention of transcending given knowledge. In the scholarly and academic article the students position themselves in a triad including scholarly problems (content), a form (the mediating tools of the different subjects and the mediating tools of interdisciplinarity) and asocial goal (dialogue with other participants of the discourse community).

The thesis points out that if a problem statement should set the scene for an assignment in this register as a genre, it must include the five following functional components:

- The subject and its relevance
- The actual problem statement – an anomaly
- An outline of the subjects and the methods to be used
- An outline of the data to be analyzed 
- An outline of the structure of the assignment

Subsequently the thesis proposes a typology of problem statements ranked by cognitive complexity (inspired by Biggs and Collis' Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (1981)):
0. Prestructural
1. Uni- og multistructural
2. Interdisciplinary
3. Action assigning

The first one (0) is actually not a problem statement. The students position themselves as pupils who present given knowledge and possibly knowledge produced by them on a topic, but the knowledge is not used for problem solving. The next two types (1 + 2) set the scene for problem solving using the resources of one subject or the resources of several subjects parallel(1), or using the resources of several subjects integrated (2). In both cases generalizations can be made on two different cognitive levels. Partly on a level where the generalizations are made on the basis of relevant data, and partly on a higher level where the theories and the methods of the scholarly discourse community function as a warrant for the generalizations. Type 2furthermore sets the scene for a metacognitive reflection on the possibilities and the limitations of the subjects in the problem solving process. While type 1 + 2 by working with theoretical problems set the scene for the production of visible innovation in the scholarly domain, type 3supplements the two first types by including practical problems, i.e. discussion of “right/wrong” on the basis of “true/false”. Thus the most complex problem statement from a cognitive point of view is an interdisciplinary problem statement which partly includes the theories and the methods of the scholarly discourse community as a warrant for the generalizations and partly aims at solving both theoretical and practical problems. 

The typology can be used for ranking problem statements, but also for ranking assignments in their entirety. 

The thesis proposes the hypothesis that students writing problem statements on a cognitively complex level position themselves as participants who are entering the scholarly discourse communities of the gymnasium. In addition to this it proposes that the students will use the mediating tools of these discourse communities. The thesis focuses on three linguistic transmitted mediating tools for problem solving: genres, concepts and reasoning.

Genres are culturally developed and transmitted conventions for the structure of for instance scholarly researches. The genres are realized differently in different subject and they are used for storing and producing knowledge.

From the hypothesis it appears that it is cognitively more complex to produce knowledge than to store given knowledge. Hence, the relation between knowledge-producing use and knowledge-storing use of genres is investigated. And it is investigated if the produced and stored knowledge is used for problem solving. 

The concepts of the subjects are distinct, decontextualized and hierarchical concepts and they are mediating tools of the scholarly discourse communities of the subjects. They are a semantic resource for the production of meaning.²⁸⁸ The thesis makes research into which degree these concepts are appropriated in the assignments. This is done by investigating whether they are only used in the knowledge-storing paragraphs, or they are also used in the knowledge producing paragraphs and in the innovative paragraphs, i.e. the paragraphs where resources from multiple subjects are used for the answering of the problem statement.

Finally explicit causal connection between clauses is an important mediating tool because the use of this mediating tool indicates that the students are cognitively turned towards explanations. The relation between the use of causal connections in the knowledge-storing paragraphs, the knowledge-producing paragraphs and the innovative paragraphs is investigated. Assignments with a high frequency of causal connections, which are used validly in the discourse communities, demonstrate high cognitive capacity in problem solution. 

In the third part of the thesis the assignments collected on the schools are analyzed. All assignments are written in groups. 

The discourse of innovation is consumed in the same way in the three schools. They position themselves in a study preparation and competence orientated discourse. Focus is put on the students' ability to solve theoretical problems and their ability to reflect on the possibilities and the limitations of the subjects in the problem solving process.

There is however a difference between how the discourse is realized as a culture of writing in the cultural context of the school and as a “writing order”²⁸⁹ in the context of situation. In “School 1” the students are positioned as participants who write assignments in the argumentative type of text and who imitate the scholarly and academic article. In the class that I followed the “writing order” in the AT-course, whose assignments I analyze, is formulated in accordance with the culture of writing of the school. The students are ordered to write reports in which they formulate and solve problems, but it is not explicitly required that they have to use the mediating tools of the discourse communities of the subjects. On “School 2” the students are positioned like in “School 1”, but the “writing order” in the AT-course, whose assignments I analyze, orders the students to write a problem statement and to state how the problem can be solved using the resources of two different subjects. In “School 3” the students are positioned like in the former two schools, but the “writing order” in the AT-course, whose assignments I analyze, has a qualification orientated and not competence orientated focus. The students are not ordered to give an account of theories and methods of the subjects and reflecton them. Thus, focus is removed from the mediating tools and the challenging of the innovative skills of the students – the students are only ordered to answer questions of the content. The students are positioned as pupils who are to be tested.

The “writing orders” differ as to which mediating tools the students are expected to master and as to how the students are positioned in relation to the teachers. To which degree the innovative skills of the students are challenged is thus dependent on this.

The thesis shows that the groups from “School 1” have had their innovative skills challenged and that some of the groups possess the cognitive capacity to meet the challenge. In the light of this thesis it is not possible to decide whether this cognitive capacity has been developed during the AT-course or it “just” has been challenged. Five of the groups have been writing interdisciplinary problem statements that invite to an evaluation of the possibilities and limitations of the subjects – including their theories and methods. Three of the groups have been writing prestructural problem statements, and contrary to these groups the five first groups to a significant higher degree use genres in a knowledge-producing way and they use causal connections to the same degree in knowledge-producing and knowledge-storing paragraphs. Concepts, however, are primarily used in the knowledge-storing paragraphs. These groups use stored and produced knowledge for problem solving and they position themselves as participants moving towards a symmetric relationship with the teachers. The groups who have made prestructural problem statements are not orientated towards explanation and problem solution. Their assignments are multidisciplinary and orientated towards storing knowledge on a topic. The students position themselves as pupils who are to be tested.

The thesis confirms the hypothesis claiming that the problem statement is the key mediating tool in the innovative process, and it shows that there are students who possess the cognitive capacity to act innovatively if the “writing order” formulated by the teachers challenge them todo so. 

Furthermore the thesis shows that the groups from “School 2” in one respect have had their innovative skills challenged and that they have possessed the cognitive capacity to meet the challenge. The “writing order” demands the groups to write a synopsis which in its entirety must be characterized as a genuine problem statement. The groups are writing multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary problem statements and they position themselves as students who move towards a symmetric relationship with the teachers. However, since they do not write fully completed synopses one cannot observe whether they possess the cognitive capacity which is required in order to use the mediating tools of the discourse communities of the subjects. 

Finally the thesis shows that the groups from “School 3” do not get their innovative skills challenged by the “writing order”. Therefore, it cannot be decided whether they possess or could have developed the cognitive capacity required in order to be innovative. The groups have been writing prestructural problem statements with sub-questions connected to the three subjects included in the AT-course. The groups answer these questions without the inclusion of theories and methods and they position themselves in relation to the teachers as pupils who are to be tested. 

With the exception of one group from “School 1”, none of the groups inscribe them selves explicitly in a dialogical chain. The group from ”School 1” position themselves in continuation of Darwin's theory of evolution and reject the theory of Intelligent Design. Furthermore some of the groups from “School 3” refer to a Danish researcher who has developed a typology on nationalism. However, they do not discuss the typology.

The thesis – and especially the analysis of the assignments from “School 1” – shows that it is possible taxonomically to rank problem statements and assignments in their entirety in a way that enable us to distinguish between innovative and non-innovative problem statements and assignments. Furthermore the thesis shows that there are students who have the cognitive capacity to be innovative. 

Taking one's starting point in sociocultural theory and the results of this thesis it is obvious to put the following hypothesis forward: the innovative skills of the students will not be challenged unless they work within a culture of writing oriented towards problem solving and innovation. 

The didactic consequence is that the mediating tools researched in this thesis explicitly must be trained with the students in the form they are used in the specific subjects. If this condition is met, the students can use the resources of the subject and get a foundation for becoming innovative. 

_{287 AT is the official Danish abbreviation of ”Multi-subject courses within the framework of general study preparation”. In these courses the students work with interdisciplinary problems.
288 Experienced teachers have read the teaching material which the students have gone through before writing their assignments. They have underlined the words which according to them have to be explained if the students must be able to use them independently. These words are understood as the concepts of the scholarly discourse communities of the subjects in the context of the class.
289 I.e. the written instruction of the teachers to the students.}