Abstract
In the absence of meaningful strategies to promote critical thinking, systems thinking, and social intelligence, it has been argued that algorithm-driven web technology will not only serve to damage human creativity, technology may ultimately reduce our collective intelligence. At the same time, the history of group decision-making in education, business, and public administration highlights that working groups often fail to solve complex problems because their method of collaborative problem solving is ineffective. Decades of research in social psychology and the learning sciences highlight the many limitations of group problem solving, including the tendency to focus on a limited set of ideas, select ideas based on biased ‘rules of thumb’, and failure to build trust, consensus and collective vision. A fundamental skill for resolving complex social and scientific problems is the ability to collectively visualise the structure of a shared problem, and use this knowledge to design solutions and strategies for collective action. In this chapter, we describe an approach to knowledge cartography that seeks to overcome three independent human limitations which impede our ability to resolve complex problems: poor critical thinking skills, no clear methodology to facilitate group coherence, consensus design and collective action, and limited computational capacities. Building on Warfield’s vision for applied systems sciences, we outline a new systems science tool which currently combines two thought structuring methodologies: Argument Mapping for critical thinking, and Interactive Management for system design. We further describe how teaching and learning a form of knowledge cartography grounded in applied systems science requires a vision around the development of Tools, Talents, and Teams. We also provide examples of how our approach to knowledge cartography and applied systems science has been used in business and educational settings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
The software is available upon request. Please contact michael.hogan@nuigalway.ie
References
Ackoff, R. L. (1981). Creating the corporate future: Plan or be planned for. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Alberts, H. (1992, March). Acquisition: Past, present and future. Paper presented at the meeting of the Institute of Management Sciences and Operations Research Society, Orlando, FL.
Alvarez-Ortiz, M., C. (2007) Does Philosophy Improve Critical Thinking Skills? Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.
Argyris, C. (1982). Reasoning, learning, and action: Individual and organizational. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ashby, W. R. (1958). Requisite variety and its implications for the control of complex systems. Cybernetica, 1(2), 1–17.
Boulding, K. E. (1966). The impact of the social sciences. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Breslin, J. G., Passant, A., & Decker, S. (2009).Social Semantic Web. London: Springer.
Broome, B. J. (1995a). Collective design of the future: Structural analysis of tribal vision statements. American Indian Quarterly, 19, 205–228.
Broome, B. (1995b). The role of facilitated group process in community-based planning and design: Promoting greater participation in Comanche tribal governance. In L. R. Frey (Ed.), Innovations in group facilitation: Applications in natural settings (pp. 27-52). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Broome, B. J. (2006). Applications of Interactive Design Methodologies in Protracted Conflict Situations. Facilitating group communication in context: Innovations and applications with natural groups. Hampton Press.
Broome, B. J. and Christakis, A. N. (1988). A culturally-sensitive approach to Tribal governance issue management. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 12, 107–123.
Broome, B. J., & Chen, M. (1992). Guidelines for computer-assisted group problem-solving: Meeting the challenges of complex issues. Small Group Research, 23, 216–236.
Broome, B. J., & Cromer, I. L. (1991). Strategic planning for tribal economic development: A culturally appropriate model for consensus building. International Journal of Conflict Management, 2, 217–234.
Broome, B. J., & Fulbright, L. (1995). A multi-stage influence model of barriers to group problem solving. Small Group Research, 26, 25–55.
Buckingham Shum S., Lind M. and Weigand H. (2007). (Eds.) Proceedings 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web (22–23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL). ISBN: 978-1-59593-859-6. Open Access Eprint: http://oro.open.ac.uk/9275
Chang, N. (2010). Using Structural Equation Modelling to Test the Validity of Interactive Management. Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=15805
Christakis, A. N. (1987). Systems profile: The Club of Rome revisited. Systems Research, 4, 53–58.
Cleveland, H. (1973). The decision makers. Center Magazine, 6, 5, 9–18.
Coke, J. G., & Moore, C. M. (1981). Coping with a budgetary crisis: Helping a city council decide where expenditure cuts should be made. In S. W. Burks & J. F. Wolf (Eds.), Building city council leadership skills: A casebook of models and methods (pp. 72–85). Washington, DC: National League of Cities.
Deal, T. E. & Kennedy, A. A. (1982). Corporate cultures: The rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Dwyer, C., Hogan, M.J., Stewart, I. (2013). An examination of the effects of argument mapping on students’ memory and comprehension performance. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 8, 11–24.
Facione, J. (1990). Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction: The California Academic Press.
Feeg, R. (1988). Forum of the future of pediatric nursing: Looking toward the 21st century. Pediatric Nursing, 14, 393–396.
Hogan, M.J. & Broome, B. (2012). Well-Being in Ireland: Overcoming Barriers to Well-Being in Ireland, Conference Report, NUI, Galway. http://www.nuigalway.ie/psy/documents/wellbeing_ireland_conference_using_interactive_management_consultation_methodology.pdf
Hogan, M.J. & Broome, B. (2013). Wellbeing in Ireland – Designing Measures and Implementing Policies, Conference Report, NUI, Galway. http://www.nuigalway.ie/psy/documents/wellbeing_ireland_2013_conference_preliminary_report.pdf
Hogan, M.J., Harney O., & Broome, B. (2014). A Proposal for Systems Science Education. In, Wegerif, R., Kaufman, J. Li L. (Eds). The Routledge Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking. (In Press)
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An Educational Psychology Success Story: Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 365–379.
Keever, D. B. (1989, April). Cultural complexities in the participative design of a computer-based organization information system. Paper presented at the International Conference on Support, Society and Culture: Mutual Uses of Cybernetics and Science, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Kuhn, D. (2005). Education for thinking. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Kemeny, J. (1980). Saving American democracy: The lesson of Three Mile Island. Technology Review, 83, 7, 64–75.
Lanier, J. (2010). You Are Not a Gadget. New York: Alfred A.
Maani, K.E and Cavana, R.Y. (2000). Systems Thinking and Modelling: Understanding Change and Complexity, Prentice Hall, Auckland.
Mercer, N. (2004). Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1, 137–168.
Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychology Review, 63, 81–97.
Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber, M.M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227–268.
Sato, T. (1979). Determination of hierarchical networks of instructional units using the ISM method. Educational Technology Research, 3, 67–75.
Schoop M., de Moor A. and Dietz J.L.G. (2006) The Pragmatic Web: A Manifesto. Communications of the ACM, 49: pp. 75–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1125944.1125979
Simon, H. A. (1960). The new science of management decisions. New York: Harper & Row.
Stein, Z., Dawson, T. and Fischer, K. W. 2010. “Redesigning testing: Operationalizing the new science of learning”. In New science of learning: Cognition, computers, and collaboration in education, Edited by: Khine, M. S. and Saleh, I. M. 207–224. New York, NY: Springer.
van Gelder, T. J., Bissett, M., & Cumming, G. (2004). Cultivating Expertise in Informal Reasoning. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 142–152.
Vennix, J. (1996). Group Model Building: Facilitating Team Learning Using Systems Dynamics. Wiley, New York.
Warfield, J. N. (2006). An introduction to systems science. Singapore: World Scientific.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hogan, M., Harney, O., Broome, B. (2014). Integrating Argument Mapping with Systems Thinking Tools: Advancing Applied Systems Science. In: Okada, A., Buckingham Shum, S., Sherborne, T. (eds) Knowledge Cartography. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6470-8_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6470-8_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-6469-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-6470-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)