Journal Articles by Mark J Garrison
Educational Abundance, 2025
Abstract: This paper explores the thesis that Artificial Intelligence (AI) exhibits characteristi... more Abstract: This paper explores the thesis that Artificial Intelligence (AI) exhibits characteristics analogous to human psychosis, and that AI hype constitutes a “double bind,” a communication dilemma associated with schizophrenia. The article explores how neural networks mirror distortions of time and boundaries found in psychotic conditions. To break free of the double bind, it is argued that distinguishing intelligence from consciousness is key. While AI is focused on "nexting" (predicting immediate future events based on past data), unique to humans is the ability to imagine futures. Rather than fixating on concerns of AIs becoming conscious, the article warns that the pervasive integration of AI could lead to a "psychotic socialization" of humans, fostering a "cybernetic personality" that prioritizes automated responses and limits imaginative capacity.
This study investigates how the role of the reading specialist (RS) is defined and communicated b... more This study investigates how the role of the reading specialist (RS) is defined and communicated by principals, and examines to what degree a common understanding of this role exists among teachers, building administrators and reading specialists. The principal' s responsibility in defining and communicating role, and the effect these efforts have on job satisfaction and specialists' perceived effectiveness is also studied. Eight elementary schools in the western part of New York State (USA) are studied. Based on interviews with principals and reading specialists and surveys completed by principals, reading specialists, and teachers, the following themes emerge: a) Principal leadership was essential in defining the RS role; b) A clearly defined RS role was associated with greater RS satisfaction and perceptions of effectiveness as well as greater teacher compliance; c) Greater teacher compliance with a school' s literacy program did not affect beliefs about the proper role of RSs; d) Lack of a clearly defined role in a school was associated with role conflict and role ambiguity for reading specialists; e) Reading specialists, even without coaching responsibilities, served as a resource to teachers, although no time was allocated in their schedule to do so; f) Reading specialists faced challenges due to increased accountability and assessment demands affected by policy, demographics, and accountability requirements. It is concluded that principals must assume responsibility for defining and communicating the reading specialist role within their schools to strengthen literacy programming.
The implementation of value-added models of teacher evaluation continue to expand in public educa... more The implementation of value-added models of teacher evaluation continue to expand in public education, but the effects of using student test scores to evaluate K-12 physical educators necessitates further discussion. Using the five National Standards for K-12 Physical Education from the Society of Health and Physical Educators America (SHAPE), physical educators in New York State were polled about the most important goals of physical education and how value-added models may be affecting physical education practices. Participants were drawn using a proportionate stratified random sample (n=489). Standard 5 was selected as the most important by 36% of physical educators who responded, while standard 3 was chosen as most important by 33% of respondents. Thirty eight percent of physical educators reported that their performance reviews were based on student growth scores on written tests, 27% reported that their district selected fitness tests, standardized tests in English Language Arts or mathematics were reported being used by 18% of respondents, and performance-based assessments were reported being used by 17% of those completing the survey. The authors concluded that the affective domain (crucial to SHAPE standard 5) appears to be overlooked by policies that use student performance data to determine teacher effectiveness.
Advanced by powerful venture philanthropies, educational technology companies, and the US D... more Advanced by powerful venture philanthropies, educational technology companies, and the US Department of Education, a growing movement to apply ‘big data’ through ‘learning analytics’ to create ‘personalized learning’ is currently underway in K-12 education in the United States. While scholars have offered various critiques of the corporate school reform agenda, the role of personalized learning technology in the corporatization of public education has not been extensively examined. Through a content analysis of US Department of Education reports, personalized learning advocacy white papers, and published research monographs, this paper details how big data and adaptive learning systems are functioning to redefine educational policy, teaching, and learning in ways that transfer educational decisions from public school classrooms and teachers to private corporate spaces and authorities. The analysis shows that all three types of documents position education within a reductive set of economic rationalities that emphasize human capital development, the expansion of data-driven instruction and decision-making, and a narrow conception of learning as the acquisition of discrete skills and behavior modification detached from broader social contexts and culturally relevant forms of knowledge and inquiry. The paper concludes by drawing out the contradictions inherent to personalized learning technology and corporatization of schooling. It argues that these contradictions necessitate a broad rethinking of the value and purpose of new educational technology.
While research on high stakes testing continues to expand, little is known about how the use of s... more While research on high stakes testing continues to expand, little is known about how the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers is affecting physical education (PE). A proportionate, stratified random sample of physical educators in New York State was drawn (n=489) to survey them about their district' s practices and their attitudes about the State' s new teacher evaluation policy. Results indicated that 38 percent of respondents reported their district used students' written PE test results for teacher evaluation purposes, while 27 percent indicated that their district used student fitness tests for teacher evaluation purposes. Eighteen percent of respondents reported that their district used state-mandated English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics test scores in calculating physical educators' effectiveness ranks. While few reported using performance-based measures, 94 percent of respondents indicated these as the preferred means of assessment in PE. Eighty-three percent of respondents predicted that the new teacher evaluation system would not improve PE.
Building on recent discussions regarding how current national standards for physical education pr... more Building on recent discussions regarding how current national standards for physical education pro-mote cognitive outcomes over physical outcomes, the authors explore how a new era in high-stakestesting is also contributing to an emphasis on the cognitive, over the physical. While high-stakes test-ing has been linked to reducing the amount of physical education schools offer, less attention hasbeen given to the newest phase of high-stakes testing: the use of student achievement test data toevaluate teachers. To explore how this new high-stakes testing may influence physical education cur-riculum goals, the authors examine new teacher evaluation policies in New York State. The authorsthen propose an alternative rational for physical education. By promoting the physical—physicalactivity, exercise, and structured physical movement through physical education programming—phys-ical education can play a unique and key role in creating the conditions for both student cognitivedevelopment and improved public health.
This article explores the role of Pell grants in the rise of for-profit colleges and universities... more This article explores the role of Pell grants in the rise of for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) in the United States by examining National Center for Education Statistics data (Pell are financial “needs-based” grants to students to offset cost of tuition; Pell grants are the main source of federal financial support available to FPCUs). Two major findings are discussed: FPCUs have more than double the percentage of enrollment previously reported and receive greater Pell per FTE than not-for-profits (NFPs) or publics. FPCUs spend less on instruction than NFPs while some institutions have more Pell revenue than instructional expenses. Implications for educational inequality and public purposes of higher education are discussed.
This article contributes to the growing body of research exploring the impor-tance of the social ... more This article contributes to the growing body of research exploring the impor-tance of the social context in shaping the use of educational technologies.Itpresents the results of a 3 ½-year instrumental case study examining the powerof the social context to shape, in negative ways, the use of technology in oneurban elementary school. Three unsuccessful dynamics are identified thatserve to block effective instructional uses of computers and these behaviors arerelated to what Linda McNeil described as “defensive teaching.” These unsuc-cessful interactions, it is argued, represent actors’ efforts to resolvethedilemma of how to get through the day without confronting the overwhelminginstructional tasks teachers and students at the school face. The authorscon-clude by noting that the use of technology did not strongly shape the inter-personal and political dynamics involved and that similar types of defensiveteaching and learning can be found in educational situations without technology.
The author of this article challenges a common assumption made by both critics and defenders of s... more The author of this article challenges a common assumption made by both critics and defenders of standardized-testing technology (or psychometry), namely that standardized tests "measure" something (culture, ability, etc.). It argues that psychometric practice cannot be classified as a form of measurement and instead is best understood as a marker of social value, an inherently political act. The chapter concludes by suggesting the significance of this argument for debates regarding "standards," "accountability," and educational assessment more generally.
Book Chapters by Mark J Garrison
Garrison, M. J. (2022). Confronting the digital Leviathan in education: On cybernetic pedagogy and data-intensive algorithmic technologies. In K. J. Saltman & N. Nguyen (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Approaches to Politics and Policy of Education (pp. 225–240). Routledge., 2022
The technologies of concern for this essay can be signified under the banner of data-intensive al... more The technologies of concern for this essay can be signified under the banner of data-intensive algorithmic technologies (DIAT, as in Silicon Valley is putting us on one). These include artificial intelligence (AI, including machine learning), blockchain, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT). These technologies are first, digital, and increasingly automated, and second, data-driven, in the sense that they do not function without large amounts of data ("big data"). 1 These data, importantly, are increasingly derived from automated data production systems, such as internet browsing, purchasing, clicks inside a learning management system, or the vast array of sensors that make up the IoT (e.g., Internet connected sensors in commodities, home and building appliances and HVAC systems, surveillance systems, and medical equipment). 2 According to one report, there were "more than 6.4 billion devices connected to the Internet excluding computers, cellphones, and tablets in 2018. This number is projected to reach 20.8 billion devices by 2020, with some estimates suggesting as many as 100+ billion connected devices by 2020." 3 Importantly, human interactions with networked machines power DIAT. In this sense, humangenerated data are the food for the DIAT. In education, much effort is underway to "personalize" education, an effort rooted in these technologies. 4 This and associated visions include the use of blockchain (or distributed ledger technologies) and the IoT to dismantle traditional forms of public education and replace them with an algorithmic form. By harnessing new technologies and detailed data about student physical movements, personality traits, interests, knowledge and skill levels, lessons and assignments can be tailored to their unique needs and interest; it is claimed that this will improve both student engagement and performance. Through this technology-driven model of education, students develop specific skills, which in turn are transparently represented by new micro credentialing systems using blockchain technology to award digital badges to students, signaling that they have what employers need. This in turn, it is claimed, fosters creativity, social mobility, and economic development. 5 What is perhaps challenging with respect to analysis of DIAT is that data, algorithms, automation, and AI have existed long before the invention of digital computers and the Internet. Much of this history is not widely known. Yet, modern computers make it possible for algorithms to process increasingly large amounts of data at increasingly quicker intervals; more and more of these processes can be automated, including performances, judgments or decisions once made by humans. Further, these processes are themselves self-adjusting, that is, automatically adapting to patterns in data in "real time." A key theme of DIAT, and a main reason for their appeal to economic and political elites, is the way
Garrison, M. J. (2022). Critical research methodology: A realist approach. In K. J. Saltman & N. Nguyen (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Approaches to Politics and Policy of Education (pp. 53–64). Routledge., 2022
The present period constitutes a crisis of science, of method. Take for example the Collaborative... more The present period constitutes a crisis of science, of method. Take for example the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) universities often require for both students and faculty as part of their ethics review board protocol. 1 Importantly, this training now covers the replication crisis. Lack of reproducibility of research results, trainees are informed, refers to failures to obtain similar results when replicating an experiment; it is also evident when different researchers analyze the same data yet obtain different results. The training indicates that this problem exists in biomedical, behavioral, computational, and social sciences, and engineering. The replication crisis is at least in part an ethical one, as researchers have admitted to knowing about, or engaging in, efforts to manipulate data; techniques such as p-hacking 2 are widely practiced, and journal editors, publishers, and funders of research have knowingly continued to employ perverse incentives and suspect standards (e.g., the reliance on null-hypothesis significance testing) for evaluating empirical research, the very research from which "evidence-based decisions" are to be made. 3 Yet, the most prominent critics come from "within house." Speaking to proposals for improving research quality, Arocha observed that "most … take the standard linear input-output approach for granted." The problem originates from flawed methodological conceptualizations rooted in positivism, namely empiricism, the thesis that knowledge can only be obtained from sense experience, and operationism, that is, reducing "an unobservable process to the empirical consequences that are used to verify it." 4 Others have gone even farther. Psychological research fails because it focuses on isolated facts rather than the development of a general theory, relies too heavily on quantitative data, and ignores that the same external environment can psychologically be very different and not only the external but the psychological environment must also be controlled. Because of these and other issues, Toomela declared that the last 60 years of mainstream psychology "should simply be forgotten as useless for the development of psychology." 5 In his 1972 volume Social Sciences as Sorcery, Andreski made similar sweeping claims about the social and political sciences, especially their use of quantification as scientific "camouflage," and their narrow conceptions of cause. 6 The replication crisis is, then, evidence of a much deeper and long-standing set of philosophical and methodological problems. The Historical Genesis of the Crisis In "Notes on Science and the Crisis," some 70 years ago, Max Horkheimer argued that science cannot jettison philosophy, deny the significance of ideology, and separate theory from action without
Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation, 2019
This chapter argues that behaviorism is the psychological foundation of a neoliberal outlook, und... more This chapter argues that behaviorism is the psychological foundation of a neoliberal outlook, underpinning the human capital conception of skill. After highlighting the behaviorist nature of current neoliberal education policies and initiatives, the chapter presents an overview of behaviorist thought, paying special attention to how its assumptions break with liberal political ideals. Similarities between analyses of neoliberalism and the logic of radical behaviorism are then explored. Having established the striking similarities in the logics, assumptions and outlooks endemic to neoliberal and behaviorist thought, the chapter ends by exploring the way in which behaviorism has influenced conceptions of skill in education policy geared toward the production of human capital, and the contra- dictions these practices produce. As the foundation of the neoliberal conception of skill, behaviorism works against the development of the human capacities required to confront the various crises confronting humanity.
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Journal Articles by Mark J Garrison
Book Chapters by Mark J Garrison