The research design

The research design used a case study approach in which nominally the same curriculum knowledge (two foundational laws in thermodynamics) was compared across four sub-cases, two in engineering and two in the sciences. This symmetry of design also afforded an

opportunity to explore potential variation within the broad fields of engineering and science. As explained in chapter three, a methodological decision was made to focus on knowledge as presented in the five textbooks prescribed for six undergraduate courses at the University of Cape Town, rather than attempting to extract disciplinary content knowledge from lectures. This ensured more stable empirical data less influenced by the caprices of individual lecturer decisions. In all cases the introductory undergraduate textbooks were published by

international publishers, and most of the texts (except the one physics textbook) are later editions of the texts. This is an indication of their dissemination and acceptance as international academic texts suitable for undergraduate instruction (see also the Bernsteinian argument developed in section 3.3.3, explaining reasons for expecting significant agreement on the breadth of topics in typical undergraduate technical textbooks).

7.3

Analytical framework

An important part of the work done in the thesis was the development of an analytical

framework that would allow for the selection and analysis of the empirical objects identified in the textbook disciplinary knowledge. Investigating the nature of engineering science knowledge, and comparing this to knowledge in science, set a challenging analytical problem because of the close adjacency of the knowledge fields. It required a diagnostic instrument capable of fine- grained distinction, and developing this tool was the initial research task.

7.3.1 Considering possibilities from the sociology of educational

knowledge

The theoretical work of British sociologist Basil Bernstein provided a valuable starting point. Bernstein theorised the educational process in his development of the pedagogic device as a description of the way the “outside becomes the inside…” (Bernstein, 1987, p. 563). In the process, he developed a sociology of knowledge that allowed for a differentiation between new knowledge becoming part of the canon of a discipline in the field of production, the delocation and relocation of this knowledge into curriculum knowledge in the field of recontextualisation, and finally the acquisition of knowledge though pedagogic practices in the classroom in the field of reproduction. It was therefore important to clarify the position of the study in terms of these

171 three levels. The empirical data described in this thesis was collected from curriculum texts, and was therefore recontextualised disciplinary knowledge.

Bernstein’s notions of singulars and regions were relevant for the study described here: the science disciplines of chemistry and physics are considered typical singulars in the Bernsteinian tradition, with strong classification and boundary maintenance. Bernstein described regions as disciplinary fields with weaker boundary maintenance, and an outward orientation towards what he called the field of practice of typical professions and occupations. The engineering sciences (mechanical and chemical engineering) would therefore be considered regions. In many ways the notions of singulars and regions were underdeveloped in the Bernsteinian framework. The terms came late in the chronology of Bernstein’s theoretical development, and “are more suggestive than they are explanatory”, (Muller, 2007, p. 65) in a slightly different context. The concepts are therefore challenging to operationalise directly, and lack definition as analytical tools. By themselves they do not suggest variation within the categories, and while Bernstein’s distinction between regions and singulars is useful as a first pass at differentiating between knowledge in science and engineering, it remains at best a fairly blunt instrument for use with detailed empirical data.

Bernstein’s work has been extended by various scholars (see the references to the work of Johan Muller, Karl Maton, Suellen Shay and others in more detail in chapter two). Maton’s work on Legitimation Code Theory, in particular semantics, has been used in educational research to refer to the relationships between knowledge and context (in semantic gravity) and between knowledge and the condensation of meaning in symbols (in semantic density). These concepts have been productively used in research of pedagogic practice, and their appeal is apparent for describing differences between contrasting disciplinary fields. However, semantics could not provide enough granularity for distinctions between the contiguous fields considered in this study, as both the sciences and the engineering sciences generally have strong semantic density because of the importance of mathematics, graphs and equations in both broad fields.

Furthermore, the empirical work in the thesis addresses the same knowledge concepts in thermodynamics, with comparable semantic density across all sub-cases. A similar argument could be made for broadly corresponding strength in the semantic gravity of the larger disciplinary fields of science and engineering: both disciplinary fields have strong empirical referents in the ‘real’ world, and both present knowledge within contexts, even if the contexts are different for the broad fields.

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7.3.2 Considering the philosophy of engineering science and science

None of the theoretical tools considered from the sociology of knowledge were therefore exhaustively able to meet the requirements of this research study to investigate differences and similarities in the knowledge of the closely related fields. The applied philosophies of science and engineering concern themselves with the nature and approach of the disciplines, and these were considered next as potential sources of theoretical concepts that would facilitate analysis of the data.

Various philosophers counsel against essentialist delineation of the disciplines, and Houkes (2009) cautions against an oversimplified polarisation of the goals of science and engineering as “truth vs usefulness” (p.312). A more nuanced approach is needed to proceed beyond a

superficial distinction between disciplinary goals. A commitment to consider knowledge rather than all disciplinary practices means that the focus in the thesis is therefore on epistemic differences and similarities, or the degree of “epistemic emancipation” (Houkes, 2009, p. 309). Houkes distinguishes between strong and weak epistemic emancipation26_{, and intriguingly}

suggests that it should be possible to probe weaker epistemic emancipation empirically if differences could be found in the way the disciplines approach certain epistemic practices. Two of these, idealisation and normativity, were explored further in this thesis. A third analytical category, specialisation, was developed in interaction with the data, as described in chapter three.

Specialisation is used in this thesis to describe the way the fundamental values of the broad disciplinary fields are enlisted in aspects of the knowledge, alluding to the potentially different social functions (description and explanation for the sciences, and artefact realisation in engineering) of the disciplines.

Idealisation is an important epistemic approach in both science and engineering science. This involves the intentional (Weisberg, 2007a) and selective (Van Fraassen, 2010) distortion of knowledge for specific purposes. One of the questions explored in the research described in this project, is whether there is any evidence in the data for differences in the way idealisation is employed in the sciences and engineering sciences.

Normativity, a concept from the philosophy of technology, is often centred on the artefactual nature of technology (Dancy, 2006; Franssen, 2009), such as the evaluative consideration of the functionality of artefacts and the intentionality in the construction of artefacts. In chapter two I

26 _{As discussed in chapter two, Houkes suggests that at best a weak epistemic emancipation is likely for} engineering science knowledge (strong epistemic emancipation would suggest no intersection of epistemic values and criteria between science and engineering science).

173 describe how Radder (2009c) proceeds beyond the artefact in his view that technology, and therefore engineering, is inherently normative. Evidence of qualitative differences in normative emphases in the knowledge in science and engineering knowledge was explored in the data.

7.3.3 The analytical instrument and data analysis

These three concepts, specialisation, idealisation and normativity, became the starting point of developing a potentially productive analytical framework. Chapter three describes the way the concepts were operationalised for application to the empirical data. Starting from a proto- understanding of the teloi of the broader disciplinary fields, strong function and theory orientations were suggested for the knowledge in engineering and science disciplines respectively (see Figure 3 .1).

From this beginning, it became possible to conceptualise specialisation, idealisation and normativity as knowledge modalities, elaborating on the knowledge orientation. Nevertheless, the modalities remained data-distant (Moore & Muller, 2002), and needed mobilisation before they could be brought to bear upon the units of data. This involved viewing the modalities as axes of variance and developing sets of modes as the ends of a continuum along which the modalities varied (see the visualisations described in paragraph 7.4 below). For the modality of specialisation the modes are particulars and universals; for the idealisation modality, the knowledge either idealises towards physical realisability or abstract-ideal theorisation. In the case of the normative modality, the knowledge modes vary from constitutive normativity to incidental normativity. The analytical instrument as a whole is described in Figure 3. 2 of the methodology chapter, and shows the full progression from disciplinary telos to knowledge modes. The modes are conceived of as continua, rather than binaries. The model therefore suggests the possibility of variations in modal strength.

The units of analysis were thermodynamics knowledge themes. Once identified, data units were considered in terms of each of the three modalities, and coded for the modes. In multi-modal instances, a principal mode was identified. Appendix A summarises the coding results.