The Roles of Variability in Quantitative Analysis of Complex Adaptive Systems

• In Event: Advances in Complexity Theory and Research in Education

Abstract

Variability is an extremely important, yet often overlooked, tool for quantitative analysis. It forms the basis of the scientific method. However, in quantitative analysis in educational research, many statistical procedures rely on behaviorist and linear deterministic models for outcomes. As a result, educational researchers often get hung up on the arithmetic mean while excluding the important of variance all together. It is the purpose of this research, therefore, to posit variability’s extremely important and methodological role in the study of complex adaptive systems in relation to quantitative tools of analysis in educational research.

Authors

• Donald L. Gilstrap, The University of Alabama

• Bernard P. Ricca, Saint John Fisher College