Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1 Conversation Theory
A conceptual model represents the arrival of a shared understanding of a sub-
ject area between two different actors - the domain expert and the systems
designer. One way of viewing the process of understanding is through the lens
of Conversation Theory (CT) [13]. As theory of exposition and defence, CT can
be summarised as follows: one participant (say, the domain expert) describes a
body of knowledge to a second participant (the Systems Analyst). Both these
participants are a type of organization - the psychological (p-) individual. A
p-individual is a stable closed system comprising memory (facts), rules for inter-
preting the memory (concepts), rules for structuring the derivation of concepts
- “how to” understand concepts and rules for understanding how topics in the
memory relate to each other. In a basic conversation (“skeleton of a conversa-
tion”), there are two levels - the “how” and “why”. The “how” level describes
how to do a topic for example, recognizing, constructing and maintaining a topic,
while the “why” level is focused on explaining or justifying the topic perhaps in
terms of other topics. The basic conversation is provocative, that is participants
are provoked into constructing understandings of each others' beliefs. A “mod-
eling facility” provides the medium in which concepts are understood between
individuals.
A key aspect of CT is the embodiment of knowledg (e.g. the workings of the
combustion engine, finite state machines or any other coherent whole) which is
viewed as a set of topics or facts that are relatedtoeachother.Relationsbe-
tween topics are either decompositional (hierarchical) or analogous (heterarchi-
cal), when such relationships and topics are static then that static representation
is called an entailment structure. When a topic is understood by a learner (via
a reproducible procedure) then the topic also exists as a concept for potential
sharing with another p-individual.
5.2 Argumentation Theory
A person who has or possesses a theory knows how to do certain things and can
support those actions with explanations, justifications and answers to queries.
This is similar to Toulmin's argumentation model [18] - a logical structure for
reasoning about the validity of arguments, the structure of which are described
below:
Claim. A proposition representing a claim being made in an argument;
Grounds. One or more propositions acting as evidence justifying the Claim;
Warrant. One or more rules of inference describing how the Grounds contribute
to the Claim;
Backing. The knowledge establishing the Grounds for believing the Warrant;
Qualifier. A phrase qualifying the degree of certainty in the argument for the
Claim;
Rebuttal. One or more propositions challenging the validity of the Claim.
