Kenneth C. Bessant

The Development and Validation of Scores on the Mathematics Information Processing Scale (MIPS).

This study reports the development and the psychometric properties of a new 87-item Mathematics Information Processing Scale (MIPS) that explores (a) learning strategies for statistics (or mathematics-related) content, (b) metacognitive problem-solving skills, and (c) attentional deployment in evaluative contexts. A total of 340 introductory statistics students (188 females and 152 males) completed the MIPS along with measures of statistics anxiety, attitudes toward statistics, and student learning approaches. Exploratory factor analysis, with oblique rotation, indicated a multidimensional interpretation of the MIPS, and the corresponding scales correlated as expected with related variables. Factor analysis identified five theoretically meaningful dimensions tentatively labeled Metacognitive Problem Solving, Deep-Associative Study, Surface-Disintegrated Study, Performance Preoccupation, and Strategic Study.

Thoughts on the Origins, Concepts, and Pedagogy of Statistics as a “Separate Discipline”

Statistics arose in part out of the interplay between mathematics and the data-analytic needs of various applied sciences (Stigler 1999). Close linkages to mathematics and to research-oriented fields have prompted debate over the emergence of statistics as a distinct field of study. Efforts to differentiate statistics from mathematics have drawn attention to its unique history, questions, and content. Insofar as statistics is an evolving subject area, with academic and practical ties to a number of disciplines and professions, it continues to benefit from the examination of its origins, nature, and unfolding. This article contributes to this general goal through a review of (a) early definitions of statistics, (b) recent discussions of disciplinary boundaries, (c) twentieth-century reform views on including statistics topics in school mathematics, and (d) the impact of curricular and pedagogic factors on the uniformity of the discipline.

Regional planning in rural Manitoba: a study of the ‘health’ of a prairie region

Abstract Regional planning has commonly been concerned with large units at the expense of small, and often treats these areas as more or less homogeneous entities, rather than as regions that might vary internally, in their economic and social well-being. In contrast, this paper discusses a survey of agricultural and small business soundness and vitality, or ‘health’, conducted in the relatively small North Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. It was found that serious problems of agricultural health occur in this area of Manitoba, which make many rural communities less ‘sustainable’, although there are also great variations in potential well-being within the region. In particular, the family farm is still largely dependent upon family labour input, but it is also critically dependent upon outside income sources; without these the farm unit could not function. Small businesses were found, however, to be much healthier and much more optimistic about the future, although many only survived as a result of unpaid family labour and outside employment. In conclusion, we thus have a conundrum. Agricultural health was poor and deteriorating, and yet small business health was quite good and seemed to be improving, despite the fact that the latter has traditionally been dependent upon, and a reflection of, the former. Interestingly, many of the problems of this rural area are similar to those observed in other countries, which suggests that solutions, or at least decision-making towards solutions, could be more universally applied than in the past.

Community Development Corporations as Vehicles of Community Economic Development: The Case of Rural Manitoba

Researchers and practitioners routinely discuss the impact of urbanization, globalization, fiscal retrenchment, and service devolution on rural livelihoods. These wide-scale transformations have prompted the search for alternative modes and mechanisms of community development. Over the past decade, interest in community economic development (CED) has grown significantly in various parts of rural Canada. CED constitutes a comprehensive, integrated approach to economic and social revitalization that calls upon local residents, leaders, and organizations to assume more active roles in all aspects of the development process. In Manitoba, government and community representatives view community development corporations (CDCs) as important vehicles of CED, particularly through the enhancement of community capacity. The present paper examines the degree of interconnectedness between core aspects of the CED framework and the emergent role(s) of CDCs. This goal is addressed through the discussion of relevant literature and questionnaire data gathered from representatives of 55 rural Manitoba CDCs. The results of the study indicate that CDC mandates and activities reflect CED principles such as multi-sectoral initiatives, community involvement, strategic planning, and inter-organizational partnerships. And, although there is growing recognition of the social development agenda. CDC functions are heavily focused on business and economic development. The CDC model offers important opportunities to integrate economic renewal with other types of community capacity building: leadership development, collective action, and inter-organizational relations.

An interactional approach to emergent interorganizational fields

Collaboration among community organizations is considered an important strategy for addressing the challenges posed by complex problems and turbulent environments. Indeed, there has been a proliferation of research on factors influencing the formation of interorganizational relationships (IORs), including a marked emphasis on transaction costs, resource dependence, and strategic choice. Far less attention has been focused on interest convergence, communal will, and mutuality, all of which are central to Wilkinson’s social field theory. A pilot study (n = 30) was conducted to explore community development practitioners’ views concerning the involvement of field-theoretic processes in community-oriented IORs. Participants rated a series of Likert-format statements based on an interactional approach to emergent IORs among local development agencies. Non-parametric Mokken analysis of the item responses identified six hierarchically ordered scales reflecting core tenets of social field theory. This research was undertaken to advance contemporary methods of investigating field-interactional interpretations of community and organizational development.

A Commentary on Drodge and Reid's "Embodied Cognition and the Mathematical Emotional Orientation"

In a recent issue of Mathematical Thinking and Learning, Drodge and Reid (2000) expressed the hope that the concept of an emotional orientation may prove useful in analyzing, interpreting, and researching mathematical activity. I comment on two main themes addressed in this article: (a) the conceptual analysis of structures or processes (e.g., cognition and emotion) presumed to operate within the individual, and (b) the interchange between these “internal structures” and the broader notion of a community emotional orientation. Drodge and Reid’s enactivist perspective provides an alternative conceptualization of intraand interpersonal functioning. This article raises many salient questions concerning the origin and nature of human cognition and emotion, as well as their interconnections with community emotional orientations. My goal is to draw attention to several issues that warrant further theoretical and research attention. The commentary is meant as a constructive, as opposed to a critical, reaction to the authors’ work, which reflects my academic emotional orientation and that expressed by English (2000). I begin by briefly restating Drodge and Reid’s characterization of an emotional orientation as a mixture of “share[d] beliefs and values, ways of communicating, and forms of acting” (p. 250). The authors further suggested that the emotional orientation of a community or domain such as mathematics involves three “linked functions”: “the criteria of accepting explanations,” “the activities that are considered appropriate,” and “the shared experience and assumptions of a community” (p. 250). The discussion of an emotional orientation represents somewhat of a deMATHEMATICAL THINKING AND LEARNING, 3(4), 315–321 Copyright

Intersubjectivity, Community, and Agency

There has been longstanding theoretical and philosophical debate over the nature of individual subjectivity and, by implication, intersubjectivity. Language acquisition and shared understandings are among the many aspects of lived experience that are framed in terms of intersubjective relations. One of the pivotal aspects of this discourse involves the problem of how to interpret the meaning of the “person” or “self” relative to the act of “entering into relation.” Intersubjectivity can be understood as a mode of relation between separate pre-given actors, as contrasted with processual interpretations of co-emergence or co-existentiality. Regardless, “being” is always-already “co-being.” This chapter makes the point that intersubjectivity is essential to a relational interpretation of both community and collective agency.

Relational Sociology and Emergent Community

The recent “relational turn” in the social sciences is bringing much needed attention to the study of social relations. This chapter discusses relational sociologists’ efforts to reconnect, in more deliberate terms, with the primacy of relations and process thinking. For some theorists, all is social relations insofar as interdependent actors, transactions, and emergent patterns exist always-already in constant motion. This avidly anti-essentialist view of lived experience differs notably from the critical realist notion that relations can give rise to sui generis social effects, events, or phenomena. Notwithstanding different streams of thought on such matters, there is general agreement concerning the relational embeddedness of human activity. There is considerable theoretical value in thinking about community as a confluence of multifaceted relations and as an emergent phenomenon that possesses distinct properties.

The Field-Interactional Approach to Community

The field-interactional approach evolved in the late twentieth century as an alternative to social system thinking about community. The study of field dynamics is not confined to the interactional perspective, and, so, this chapter explores varied interpretations of the “field” concept. Early proponents of the interactional field approach recognized the need to re-theorize community in light of wide-scale societal transformation and turbulence. Social field theory draws attention to the multifarious interaction processes at play within communities and the potential for purposive collective action. The field-interactional perspective is essentially a “bottom-up” community development approach that is premised on emergent relational processes of interest convergence and collective agency. Quite literally, communities “act” in and through field-based interactions and relations that become organized around mutual interests.

The Socio-symbolic Construction and Social Representation of Community

The expanding interest in social constructionist, symbolic, and representational approaches reflects a shift in emphasis away from narrowly framed pre-given, structural conceptions of community. In general constructionist terms, community can be viewed as a social product of meaning-making processes that endow it with obdurate social reality. Recent discussions of relational constructionism focus on the role of language and discursive practices in the continuous (trans)formation of relatively fluid and contingent local realities. Also, community can be thought of as a collectively built narrative or symbolically constructed representation “in the mind.” This chapter explores the idea that community is a discursively constituted socio-symbolic construction that is talked and acted into existence in and through everyday lived relation.