- critical realism; adaptive systems; medical and nursing education; educational design
Abstract
In this article, we discuss a view of knowledge inspired by the principles of critical realism and systems thinking. The image of the decomposition of white light by a prism is used as a metaphor to express the concept that reality is composed of mechanisms, and material and immaterial objects, such as those involved in education, which can be represented in different ways. Reality is knowable, but not in its entirety (white light). We can only know it based on a point of view (one of the colors) and by accepting the limitations inherent in the fact that reality, especially educational reality, is an open complex system. This implies that linear cause-and-effect connections between objects are only simplifications and falsifications and that the only knowledge we can have is that of probabilistic tendencies and probabilistic relationships between objects. It is also illusory to think that we can fix the contradictions and paradoxes of the physical and human world; we can only accept them. This position is illustrated with examples related to the choice of teaching methods and the influence that sociocultural and psychological processes have on educational processes. The choice of disciplinary and epistemological standpoint with which to approach the educational enterprise is the responsibility of the educator, who makes this choice on the basis of his or her own competence and a disposition inspired by the ethics of care and responsibility.