Exercises

Definitions

In "hard" subjects, such as the sciences, terms are usually defined stipulatively, i.e. they have formal technical definitions which have to be learned. In "softer" disciplines, the terminology is often used in everyday conversation, and so there is a problem about what it actually means in different discourses. Dictionary definitions—so beloved of students—do not tell you what people mean by the terms in practice. This exercise is about helping to tease out those issues.

Example:

Who is Ill?

• The category "illness" is vague. It means different things to different people in different circumstances. This is an attempt to tease out the meanings surrounding the word "illness".
• Rate each of the conditions below not according to severity of the illness, but on how clearly the person fits into your notion of "illness".

Add up your total score _______

Method

The items are chosen to illustrate the notion of "illness": some of them are fairly clear-cut, whereas others are debatable or fringe instances. In the exercise above, the particular focus was on mental illness, hence items 3, 9 and 11.

Students are instructed as on the rubric above.

For processing, it is useful to have a version of the questionnaire on an OHT (or you can write it on a flipchart while the students are filling in the questionnaire). This version should have three columns on the right, as below:
 

1. Start with one student and ask what she has scored for item 1.           
2. Then get the student next to her to add his score to the number she called out, and to call out the result             
3. The next student adds on her score to the second student's, and so on round the class. (It is usually a little faltering for the first item or so, with various jokes about not being able to do mental arithmetic, but soon picks up speed)              
4. As tutor, you need to listen carefully for the range of scores being called out. The table above shows how you enter up the results. The score is the figure called out by the last student. The range respresents the highest and lowest rating given to that item. When all the scores are in, you can work out the rank ordering, from the item which gets the highest score (most clearly an example of "illness", in this case) to that with the lowest (most clearly is not illness).            
5. Having done that, you can then lead a discussion:       
   • Look at the extremes of the ranking, or at those items with the full range of rating (1–5), and ask students what factors led them to give a high or low rating to that item.           
   • Use this as a means of unpacking the ideas contained within the notion of "illness", and note them on the whiteboard, such as "disability", "pain", "not self-inflicted", or whatever emerges.      
6. Note that there is a temptation to simplify the method and the processing, but only doing it this way yields the information which you can use to undertake an effective analysis.       
7. (In the "illness" example given, there is also an option for individual students to add up all their ratings. In this case, but not with other concepts, this yields some kind of score of how "medicalised" is the student's view of problems. It can be compared with others in the group if you wish.)

Another example

(This is the teacher's scoring sheet version)

Is it Education?