Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
opponents. One of the key rationales for experimentation is that it allows
the scientists, technologists, policy makers, and other concerned parties
to learn about the technology and its unanticipated impacts and to find
ways to respond to them. This section expands on the concept of learn-
ing through experimentation beyond the characteristics of the technol-
ogy. Specifically, it addresses the problem framing and policy-oriented
discourse needed for higher-order learning.
Higher-order learning is a change in approaches to interpreting
observations and framing problems and situations. It entails changes in
the assumptions, norms, and interpretive frames that govern the actions
of individuals, communities, and organizations, or that underlie a pol-
icy discourse. The term “higher order” denotes what in organizational
sciences has been dubbed “double loop”
56
or “generative” learning,
57
and in policy sciences as “conceptual” learning.
58
It contrasts with lower
order/single loop/adaptive/technical learning in which problems are cor-
rected or policies altered without changes in problem framing, assump-
tions, or norms.
Learning occurs through a feedback-stimulus mechanism when the
well-accepted, time-tested, and trusted assumptions and competences
receive feedback on their problem-solving performance. If the feedback
reveals poor problem-solving performance, the original assumptions are
reevaluated and replaced. This broad concept of feedback stimulus is
consistent across a wide range of disciplinary writings about learning
from the cognitive, organizational, and policy sciences. Working within
the context of cognitive science on how individual professionals learn
through problem solving, a seminal study showed that learning among
56
See C. Argyris, Double-loop learning in organizations, 55
Harvard Business Review
115-125 (1977); See also C. Argyris & M. Sch on,
Organizational Learning: A Theory
of Action Perspective
. (Addison-Wesley 1978).
57
P. M. Senge, Building learning organizations, 32
Sloan Management Review
7-23
(1990).
58
Pieter Glasbergen,
Learning to Manage the Environment, in Democracy and the Envi-
ronment: Problems and Prospects
175-212 (WilliamM. Lafferty & James Meadowcroft
eds., Edward Elgar Publishing 1996).
