Presented to faculty of Missouri Western State College, St. Joseph MO, 16 November 2001
Dewey s Theory of Inquiry and Experiential Learning
I have been asked to talk about Dewey's philosophy of education and its possible
application to higher education. What I would like to do first is to give a brief account of
Dewey's theory of inquiry, since it was this theory, that Dewey gradually developed over a
number of decades, that provides the theoretical basis of his ideas in education. Then we can
look at some basic Deweyan positions in educational theory as outgrowths of his understanding
of inquiry, and finally consider possible applications to higher educational practice.
Dewey's theory of inquiry rejected earlier empiricist and rationalist models in favor of
understanding the achievement of knowledge from a naturalistic and developmental perspective.
For Dewey, inquiry must be understood genetically, as a developing activity, the features of
which play certain functional roles in this developmental process. Thus facts, perceptions, ideas,
concepts are not independent preexisting entities that are artificially combined in inquiry, but are
distinguished in the roles they play as instrumentalities or "tools" in the accomplishment of
completed inquiry. Thus Dewey himself called his theory "instrumentalism."
Dewey distinguished several phases in this genetic development. First, like any human
activity, inquiry is preceded by an antecedent situation which at once stimulates activity, and sets
the general parameters to which subsequent activity must conform. He called such a situation
"indeterminate," since it is one that checks ongoing, fluid action based on preestablished habits.
The indeterminateness at this stage, then, is wholly practical--we don't know what to do to fulfill
human needs and interests. This situation becomes, in his terms, "problematic" once the general
nature of the problem is identified. The problematic situation stimulates the next stage, where
there is a division between, on the one hand, the "facts"--known conditions and circumstances
with which any resolution must conform--and "ideas"--hypotheses concerning the as yet
unknown conditions of the original checking of activity. Once a likely hypothesis is settled upon,
the final stage is testing the hypothesis as a guideline for renewed activity. The hypothesis is
confirmed if effective activity is restored. To take a very simple example, if I am digging in my
garden and hit an unknown obstruction under the soil, I am in an indeterminate situation--my
activity of digging is checked. This becomes problematic once I identify the problem--"There is
an obstruction." This then leads to the functional distinction between facts and ideas. At the
base level my description of relevant facts might be in the guise of sensory statements: "This
feels like an oblong, roughly textured object." Entertained hypotheses will take logically a
conditional form, where the consequent is a mode of action confirming the antecedent: "If this is
a root, I should be able to cut it with a hatchet." The last stage is the use of the hypothesis as a
guide for action--I strike the obstruction with the hatchet, the root breaks, and I continue digging.
The process of inquiry, then, is inherently experimental, and its aim is practical or pragmatic--the
reestablishment of fluid and effective human activity. It is important to notice here how for
Dewey learning is a product of a person's interaction with their environment. Earlier theories of
knowledge concentrated on mental activity as the basis for knowledge. For Dewey,
understanding arises as much from what we do with our bodies as what we do with our minds.
The outcome of this process is what Dewey called "funded experience." Our experience
is funded with new significance by foregoing inquiries, significance that broadens and deepens
the world that is experienced. The important point here is that we don't simply achieve a new
idea or thought that is superadded to our experience--the significance is something that is directly
integrated in the experience. Using our previous example, once I discover that it is a root
underneath the soil, I don't simply think this obstruction to be a root, but I experience it as root,
and this establishes certain further connections and further possibilities in experience. Its that
tree at the side of my garden that is intruding; the root might be cut, but what will this do to my
tree?
Funded experience, then, is something that grows in layers, if you will, around the central
kernal of our own immediate circumstances, growing outward spatially and temporally. As one
learns history, one experiences oneself as a product of a certain cultural development, of a certain
political and economic system, etc. As one learns evolutionary theory, one comes to experience
oneself as an integrated part of a natural environment, and as a product of an evolutionary past.
The continuity of this growth, for Dewey, was of central significance. Each new funding of our
experience sets the conditions for more sophisticated inquiries, and additional stages of growth.
One additional point is needed to round out this picture of Dewey's theory of inquiry, and
that is for Dewey this process is thoroughly socialized in a number of ways. First, other people
comprise a significant part of the environment with which we interact. Thus, a significant
portion of the funded experience that arises from our inquiries is the manner in which we
experience ourselves within our social world. Second, inquiry for the most part is integrated
within various broad social arrangements that constitute vital condtions for its development. My
child's inquiries are integrated within the various mutual arrangements that determine the
direction and character of family life. In addition, one of the most significant outcomes of
inquiry is that it establishes the pragmatic basis for new and more efficient forms of social
cooperation. Social and scientific understanding allows for the identification of common
purposes, and the communal means for their fulfillment. It is not surprising, then, that Dewey
stressed the importance of education as a basis for establishing the habits and attitudes necessary
for a flourishing democracy.
2
All forms of knowing, for Dewey, are based in this genetic model, from common sense to
sophisticated science. Science differs, of course, from my problem with the root in my garden,
but the difference is one of relative sophistication. In science, the third stage of the process, the
distinction of facts and ideas, has been formalized into the distinction between theory and data.
Also the process in science is socialized into integrated, specialized investigations. The basic
structure of the process, however, remains the same.
We can get at the heart of Dewey's educational theory by asking what makes this process
of inquiry a meaningful human activity. Here I use the word "meaningful" in both its senses: (1)
in the sense that we understand the meanings inherent in the ideas or hypotheses entertained in
the process, and (2) in the sense that we appreciate the importance, the significance, of the
process itself. The answer is twofold for Dewey. First, the process of inquiry is meaningful
because it is couched within the context of habits, patterns of thought, dispositions, etc., that are
the product of earlier experimentation and that has defined our pragmatic orientation to our
environment. One might say here that the unknown receives its significance, its meaning, from
the known, where knowledge constitutes fundamentally our active adaptation to our world. My
appreciation of the meaning of that unknown obstruction in my garden is defined in the context
of the knowns of the garden (a place to grow plants), the importance of loose and aerated soil, the
eating of fresh vegetables. The second thing that gives inquiry meaning is forward-looking: the
practical aims, interests, ends that we are pursuing by inquiry and problem-solving. Loosening
the garden soil, planting the vegetables, growing healthy plants, having that victorious first fresh
salad of the summer, play an additional vital role in infusing my inquiry of the obstruction with
meaning. These two aspects of inquiry, the established practical orientation of the past and the
outcomes and aims of the future, is summed up in one of Dewey's most recognizable and
characteristic phrases: "conditions and consequences." The significance of any cognitive
problem must be assessed in terms of the conditions of the problem and the consequences of its
resolution.
What does this have to do with education? In summary form we might say simply that
successful educational practice must place the child within the context of meaningful inquiry
which connects with and is continuous with the preestablished aptitudes, understandings,
practical dispositions, etc., of the child, and which works towards goals and aims that the child
can appreciate and internalize as his or her own. Education, rather than being a disruption of the
child's maturing understandings and established interests, should be continuous with those
understandings and interests. In short, educational experience should be integrated with the
child's broader life experience.
3
The variety of the positions that Dewey argued for in his educational writings can be
understood as implications of this basic view. For example, Dewey often reiterated the point that
the educational experience should not be viewed as a preparation for life, but as a part of the
child's life experience. The teacher cannot engage a child's mind while taking the stance that the
raison d'etre of instruction is many years down the road. Educational activity should rather be
understood as on a par with meaningful adult activity: pursuing evolving present interests in the
context of standing beliefs and practices.
Another Deweyan theme: instructional subject-matter should not be organized in the
manner that is logical to an adult, but a manner that responds to the activities and interests of the
child. We might take, for example, the whole language technique of teaching writing as
Dewayan in this sense. A grammarian might think it logical to first teach the words, then the
punctuation, then build towards sentences, paragraphs, etc. The more effective approach, from a
Deweyan standpoint, is to engage the student from the start in meaningful written expression,
and teach the elements, spelling, punctuation, etc., within the context of that meaningful activity.
One last Deweyan postion: the school should not be understood as an isolated domain
within society, but as an integral part of greater society. As we noted before, inquiry is a process
that is thoroughly socialized, since it is by virtue of social arrangements that inquiry flouishes.
The school, for Dewey, should reflect these social arrangements for a couple of reasons. First,
cooperative relationships that involve mutual help and aid are vital to the learning process. The
more traditional method that put stress simply on the teacher's relation to individual students
Dewey regarded as artificial and harmful to the richness of the educational experience. Second, a
very important component of the educational experience is the child's deepening appreciation of
him or herself as a social being, part of complex social relations with others. Traditional
education, with its simplified and sterile social format, for Dewey, could not engender the sort of
richly textured social understanding that was necessary.
I would like here also to suggest a few things that Dewey did not stand for, since often a
variety of trends in modern education are unwarrentedly read back into Dewey's writings. First
of all, Dewey did not advocate a teaching method that would set students loose to learn by their
own devices. In Experience and Education Dewey expressly warned against such an
overreaction to traditional methods. Educational method should engage the child's own aptitudes
and interests, yes, but it cannot regard those aptitudes and interests as being of themselves
sufficient for learning. Nor was Dewey against the teaching of subject matter in favor of the
development of higher-order thinking skills. Rather, as previously noted, Dewey endorsed an
arrangement of subject matter that is natural to the child. If the child is personally engaged in the
process of learning content, higher-order thought will develop as a consequence. A final point-4
Dewey was not an uncritical enthusiast of so-called scientifically directed instruction. In a 1922
New Republic article, "Education as Engineering," Dewey specifically warns against the use of
scientific results as the paramount guide to educational method, and his language here could
hardly be much stronger. He calls the efforts of this kind of his own day "pathetic." His point in
that article alludes back to his earlier discussion of the aims of education in Democracy of
Education. Aims or goals that are imposed from the outside upon educators, and do not arise out
of the very complex set of circumstances that obtain in the classroom, are bound to do more harm
than good. Dewey's prescription is simply this: hire the brightest and most knowledgeable
teachers you can, and then let them loose in the classroom to experiment with different methods
and report results. The one and only requirement that should be imposed from the start is
absolute honesty: if something doesn't work well, educators need to be truthful about it.
When considering the possible application of Dewey's educational theory in higher
education, I think we need to be quite cautious for a number of reasons. One is that Dewey's
educational writings were always focused on the methods of primary education. His laboratory
school at the University of Chicago was on the primary level, and it was out of this experience
and his epistemological interests that his educational theory evolved. In addition, the methods of
instruction that Dewey himself applied in college teaching were rather traditional. For the most
part he lectured to his classes, and according to reports from his students his lectures were quite
dense and difficult to understand. Dewey's own teaching methods, then, suggest his trust in an
intellectual maturity of students on the college level that allowed for more traditional techniques.
Another reason I think we should take care here is that many of the things that Dewey's
educational theory might suggest for college instruction are things that for the most part we
already do. If you're teaching science, give students labs so that they might have "hands on"
experience of scientific technique. If you're teaching literature, engage students in discussion of
the themes of the readings that allow them to explore those themes from their own standpoint.
We should remember that Dewey was reacting against teaching methods--learning by rote
memorization, seeing the student as utterly passive in the classroom--that would be considered
odious to most educators today. Not taking stock of the many good things we do in the
classroom can lead to the dangerous view that change in teaching methods is a good thing in its
own right, while ignoring a point that Dewey always insisted on, that any meaningful progress
must be in response to some well-defined problem.
So let me here take a problems-based approach, and raise a few worries about higher
educational practice from a Deweyan perspective. First, I do have a concern about developments
that would place external demands or aims on the teacher in the classroom which are
wrongheaded precisely because they do not stem directly from first-hand classroom experience.
5
What worries me here in particular is the assessment movement in higher education. Any
competent teacher of any subject matter will be concerned with inculcating a vast variety of
understandings, skills, and cognitive sophistications in the student, and will choose assessment
instruments that are appropriate to the full richness of those aims. When, however, we remove
assessment from the classroom, and design an instrument to assess the intellectual product of
many courses at once, we perforce are removed from the rich context of the classroom, and are
likely to be led to more coarse, and shallower assessment instruments. Assessment instruments
of this sort are not in themselves inimical to good education. Properly used they can offer some
diagnostic check on the quality of education. My concern, however, is that if undue stress is
placed on the idea that what must come out of instruction is what the assessment instruments test,
then this may very well do harm to the richness and depth of course material.
Along the same lines of freeing the teacher from irrelevant constraints, I would have to
say my most serious concerns have to do with the common practice today of using student
evaluations to assess what is rather vaguely called "teacher effectiveness." My concern is well
represented by a painfully honest article that appeared in Time magazine last January, written by
an instructor of creative writing at Columbia University, Ben Marcus. In the article, Marcus
reported his impression that basically he was seeing two kinds of students: some students come
to his classes with an honest intent to work on improving their writing skills, while another group
come to his classes already with the impression that they are very accomplished writers, and
simply wish the instructor to confirm this impression. What Marcus has found is that if he
systematically disappoints this second group of students, he pays for this in lower evaluations.
Given his understandable interest in achieving promotion, the instructor decided to give these
students what they want: generous and empty praise for their writing. When I read this article, a
quotation came to mind from, besides Dewey, one of our great American philosophers and
educators, Morris Cohen. When asked on the occasion of the celebration of his 30th year of
teaching what in his view was the secret to his success as a teacher, Cohen replied "I have always
told the students what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear." I am afraid that the
undue stress that many colleges and universities have placed on student evaluations has led some
faculty for quite understandable reasons to do precisely what Cohen did not do--tell students
what they want to hear. To my mind there is no better single thing that we could do in higher
education to improve the circumstances of instruction than simply to discontinue the use of raw
student evaluation figures in teacher assessment.
One last worry I have, again from a Deweyan perspective, is that I don't think we as
educators do enough to place our students in what Dewey calls the problematic situation, a
situation where confusion is the rule, where investigation is open-ended, and where the path out
6
of confusion is not at all well-marked. I read a story a couple of years ago about a professor of
physics at a northeastern university who became convinced that his physics majors were not
getting enough exposure to the cutting edge issues of his science. Accordingly he offered a
seminar to these students dealing specifically with such questions. The sad outcome, he reported,
was that every one of these students dropped physics as a major. I've found in my own
experience that such reactions are not at all atypical. I am not in a position to say that I
understand fully why students react in this way, but I am concerned that one reason is that we, as
educators, are somewhat too concerned about not confusing our students. Of course there is the
bad sort of confusion, the sort that will simply stop a student in his or her tracks, with no
direction at all. But I think we should note that there is also good confusion, the sort that can
impel a student towards deeper and more sophisticated ways of thinking. For Dewey, it was
vitally important to allow students to deal with genuine problems, not ones that admit to a
solution by the mechanical application of rules and procedures, but ones that require the creation
of the rules, that require cutting the path through the underbrush, so to speak. I wonder if the
aforementioned physics students were exposed to such problems from the earliest age whether
they would have been more tolerant of the confusion, and more willing and able to take on the
challenge that it poses. I would say indeed let's confuse our students, and perhaps in this way we
can better promote what Dewey called "creative intelligence."
7