The Social Construction of Data in the Zone of Proximal Development

Abstract

Researchers in education, psychology, and related fields have historically been concerned with the extent to which the research methods they employ affect the emergence of the data they collect and analyze. Many publications, for instance, caution researchers about the perils of the Hawthorne effect (Adair et al., 1989), through which the mere fact of being observed for study improves performance. This effect suggests that what would " naturally " occur is altered by the presence of observers, thus invalidating the inevitably inflated results. The metaphors that have characterized researchers' implication in the data collection process have often stressed the notion of the purity of data: Researchers "intrude" through their media and procedures, or worse, they "contaminate" the data by introducing some foreign body into an otherwise sterile field. The assumption behind these metaphors of purity is that the researcher must not adulterate the social world in which the data exist, but must rather work in the manner of the biologist who observes the life within a Petri dish without using instruments that might disrupt the natural biological processes unfolding in the self-contained microsystem. The belief that data are pure implies that researchers must observe and capture the activity within a research site without disrupting the course of events as they would unfold without study or intervention. Data collec-tion procedures, according to this metaphor, must not affect this insular natural process, but must instead be neutral and inconspicuous in order to capture data in their immaculate form. In contrast, the Vygotskian framework I am outlining challenges the appropri-ateness of the purity metaphor in social science research. From a Vygotskian perspective, data are social constructs developed through the relationship of researcher, research participants, research context (including its historical antece-dents), and the means of data collection (cf. Berger & Luckman, 1966, for their assertion of the social construction of reality). In this chapter my goal is to expli-cate Vygotsky's notion of the development of consciousness and relate that view to the conduct of research. I will begin by providing my understanding of Vygotsky's conception of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The conception of the ZPD that I outline draws on Vygotsky's emphasis on human development's mediation through tools and signs, suggesting that the mind is elastic and unbounded. I hedge any claims to having an authoritative understanding of the ZPD because it has CHAPTER 3 50 become all things to all people, thus both making it a pervasive reference in social science research and rendering it so amorphous that it requires explication for particular applications. To begin this discussion, I first review the ZPD as explained by Vygotsky on the three occasions I have found in which he refers to it in his own writing (1978, 1987, 1998a). I then provide an expanded notion of the ZPD by situating his own very brief account in the context of both his more extended cultural-historical project and more recent scholarship conducted in this tradition. With a working definition of the ZPD proposed, I next lay out methodological problems emerging from this conception of the ZPD, including problems of defining research, identify-ing an appropriate unit of analysis, considering the manner in which tasks are interpreted by various stakeholders in teaching and research, understanding the relationship between evidence and telos, and considering the mediational role of assessment. Following these considerations, I look at the relation between research and teaching from the Vygotskian perspective I have outlined. Finally, I review the research of Vygotsky's student and collaborator A. R. Luria (1976) and offer a critique of his often-cited research on literacy development in remote Soviet provinces during a time of economic transformation, questioning his conclusions through the Vygotskian lens through which I view his work. THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT