DSRP is a theory and method of thinking, developed by systems theorist and cognitive scientist
Derek Cabrera
Derek Cabrera (born 1970) is an American systems theorist and cognitive scientist who applies systems-based concepts to the development of models in human development and learning (education), organizational learning design, management and leader ...
. It is an acronym that stands for Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives. Cabrera posits that these four patterns underlie all
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
, that they are universal to the process of structuring
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
, and that people can improve their
thinking skills by learning to use the four elements explicitly.
Cabrera distinguishes between the DSRP ''theory'' and the DSRP ''method''. The theory is the
mathematical formalism and philosophical underpinnings, while the method is the set of tools and techniques people use in real life settings (notably in
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
).
History
DSRP was first described by Derek Cabrera in the book ''Remedial Genius''. In later writings, Cabrera describes D, S, R, and P as "patterns of thinking", and expands upon the implications of these thinking skills.
The DSRP theory is a mathematical formalism of
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
and
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
, built on the philosophical underpinnings of
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
and
evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to three distinct topics: (1) the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, (2) a theory that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection, and (3) the study of the historical discovery ...
. The DSRP method is used in education and has influenced
educational reform
Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education. The meaning and education methods have changed through debates over what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an educated society. Historically, th ...
as well as in management of
learning organizations
In business management, a learning organization is a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself.Pedler, M., Burgogyne, J. and Boydell, T. 1997. ''The Learning Company: A strategy for sustainable develop ...
.
In 2008, a special section of the journal ''Evaluation and Program Planning'' was dedicated to examining the DSRP theory and method.
The 2015 self-published book ''Systems Thinking Made Simple'' is an updated treatment of DSRP.
DSRP theory
DSRP consists of four interrelated structures (or patterns), and each structure has two opposing elements. The structures and their elements are:
* Making Distinctions – which consist of an ''identity'' and an ''other''
* Organizing Systems – which consist of ''part'' and ''whole''
* Recognizing Relationships – which consist of ''action'' and ''reaction''
* Taking Perspectives – which consist of ''point'' and ''view''
There are several rules governing DSRP:
# Each structure (D, S, R, or P) implies the existence of the other three structures.
# Each structure implies the existence of its two elements and vice versa.
# Each element implies its opposite (e.g. identity implies other).
These rules illustrate that DSRP is a
modular
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...
,
fractal
In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
,
nonlinear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
,
complex systems
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
process. The four DSRP structures do not occur in a stepwise, linear process but in a highly interdependent, complex way.
DSRP theory states that these four structures are inherent in every piece of knowledge and are universal to all human thinking, and that any piece of information can be viewed using each of these structures to gain a deeper understanding of that information. The order in which the operations take place does not matter, as all four occur simultaneously.
Gerald Midgley
Gerald Robert Midgley (born 1960) is a British organizational theorist, professor of systems thinking, director of the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, and past president (2013-2014) of the International Society for the System ...
pointed out that the structures of DSRP have analogues in other systems theories: distinctions are analogous to the boundaries of
Werner Ulrich
Werner Ulrich (born 1948, Berne, Switzerland) is a Swiss social scientist and practical philosopher, and a former professor of the theory and practice of social planning at the University of Fribourg. He is known as one of the originators of cr ...
's
boundary critique Boundary critique (BC) is the concept in critical systems thinking that, according to Ulrich (2002), states that "both the meaning and the validity of professional proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarati ...
;
Stafford Beer
Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
Bi ...
's
viable system model
The viable system model (VSM) is a model of the organizational structure of any autonomous system capable of producing itself. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. On ...
explores nested systems (parts and wholes) in ways analogous to the "S" of DSRP;
Jay Wright Forrester
Jay Wright Forrester (July 14, 1918 – November 16, 2016) was a pioneering American computer engineer and systems scientist. He is credited with being one of the inventors of magnetic core memory, the predominant form of random-access computer ...
's
system dynamics
System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays.
Overview
System dynamics is a methodology and mathematical ...
is an exploration of relationships; and
soft systems methodology Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an organised way of thinking and it can be used to tackle general problematic situations that arise in the real world and in the management of change by using action. Developed in England by academics at the Lancast ...
explores perspectives.
Example
Any piece of information can be analyzed using each of these elements. For example, consider the
U.S. Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Founded in 1828, it was predominantly built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled a wide cadre of politicians in every state behind war hero Andrew ...
. By giving the party a name, Democratic, a ''distinction'' is drawn between it and all other entities. In this instance, the Democratic Party is the ''identity'' and everything else (including the
U.S. Republican Party
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the Two-party system, two Major party, major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by Abolitionism in the United Stat ...
) is the ''other''. From the ''perspective'' of the Republican Party ("identity"), however, the Democratic Party is the ''other''.
The Democratic Party is also a ''system''—it is a ''whole'' entity, but it is made up of constituent ''parts''—its membership, hierarchy, values, etc. When viewed from a different ''perspective'', the Democratic Party is just a ''part'' of the ''whole'' universe of American political parties.
The Democratic Party is in ''relationship'' with innumerable other entities, for example, the news media, current events, the American electorate, etc., each of which mutually influence the Party—a ''relationship'' of ''cause'' and ''effect''. The Party is also a relationship itself between other concepts, for example, between a voter and political affiliation.
The Democratic Party is also a ''perspective'' on the world—''a point'' in the political landscape from which to ''view'' issues.
Formula
The primary application of the DSRP theory is through its various methodological tools but the theory itself is a mathematical formalism that contributes to the fields of
evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to three distinct topics: (1) the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, (2) a theory that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection, and (3) the study of the historical discovery ...
and
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
. The formal theory states that DSRP are simple rules in a complex adaptive system that yields
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
:
The equation explains that autonomous agents (information, ideas or things) following simple rules (D,S,R,P) with their elemental pairs (i-o, p-w, a-r, ρ-v) in nonlinear order (:) and with various co-implications of the rules (○), the collective dynamics of which over a time series j to n leads to the emergence of what we might refer to as systems thinking (ST).
The elements of each of the four patterns follow a simple underlying logic as do the interactions between patterns. This logic underlies the unique ability of DSRP to be characterized as multivalent, but contain within it bivalency.
DSRP method
DSRP as a method is built upon two premises: first, that humans build knowledge, with knowledge and thinking being in a continuous feedback loop (e.g.,
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
), and second, that knowledge changes (e.g.,
evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to three distinct topics: (1) the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, (2) a theory that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection, and (3) the study of the historical discovery ...
).
The DSRP method builds upon this constructivist view of knowledge by encouraging users to physically and graphically examine information. Users take concepts and model them with physical objects or diagrams. These objects are then moved around and associated in different ways to represent some piece of information, or content, and its context in terms of distinctions, systems, relationships, or perspectives. Once a concept has been modeled and explored using at least one of the four elements of DSRP, the user goes back to see if the existing model is sufficient for his or her needs, and if not, chooses another element and explores the concept using that. This process is repeated until the user is satisfied with the model.
The DSRP method has several parts, including mindset, root lists, guiding questions, tactile manipulatives, and DSRP diagrams.
Mindset
The DSRP mindset is the paradigmatic shift toward thinking about underlying structure of ideas rather than only the content of speech acts, curriculum, or information of any kind. The DSRP mindset means the person is explicating underlying structure.
Root lists
Root lists are simply lists of various concepts, behaviors, and cognitive functions that are "rooted in" D, S, R, or P. These root lists show the research linkages between the four universal structures and existing structures which users may be more familiar with such as categorization, sorting, cause and effect, etc.
Guiding questions
Guiding questions provide users with something akin to the
Socratic method
The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate) is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw ...
of
question
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammar, grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are inte ...
ing but using DSRP as the underlying logic. Users pose "guiding questions", of which there are two for each structure of DSRP. The guiding questions are:
* ''Distinctions''
** What is __________?
** What is not __________?
* ''Systems''
** Does _________ have parts?
** Can you think of _________ as a part?
* ''Relationships''
** Is ________ related to __________?
** Can you think of ________ as a relationship?
* ''Perspectives''
** From the perspective of __________,
nsert question
** Can you think about ____________ from a different perspective?
Tactile manipulatives and DSRP diagrams
Users are encouraged to model ideas with blocks or other physical objects, or to draw (diagram) ideas in terms of D, S, R, and P. This aspect of the method is promoted as a form of nonlinguistic representation of ideas, based on research showing that learners acquire and structure knowledge more effectively when information is presented in linguistic and nonlinguistic formats.
Educational outcomes
With continued use, the method is supposed to improve six specific types of thinking skills:
*
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis ...
improves as people learn to examine the reasoning behind the distinctions they draw and the perspectives and relationships that influence how information is presented
*
Creative thinking
Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed Literature ...
improves as people make connections (i.e. relationships) between new pieces of information.
*
Systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
improves as one becomes increasingly fluent with all four elements of DSRP.
*
Interdisciplinary thinking improves as people reconsider boundaries (i.e. distinctions) and make connections between new pieces of information.
*
Scientific thinking
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...
improves as people learn to analyze information in a logical way.
*
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information ...
and
prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted ...
improves as people learn to take multiple perspectives—particularly to imagine the perspectives of other people.
In addition, the DSRP method is supposed to improve teacher effectiveness.
Applications
Cabrera claims that DSRP theory, as a mathematical and epistemological formalism, and the DSRP method, as a set of cognitive tools, is universally applicable to any field of knowledge.
Education
The DSRP method has been used extensively in educational settings from preschool through post-secondary settings. The DSRP method, as applied in education, is intended to work with existing subject-specific curricula to build thinking skills and provide a way for students to structure content knowledge.
Organizational learning
As a universal theory of systems thinking, DSRP method is in broad use as the basis for organizational learning. The link between organizational learning and systems thinking was made by
Peter Senge
Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning. ...
.
DSRP forms the basis of an organizational systems and learning model called VMCL.
Physical, natural, and social sciences
Because its creators claim that DSRP is both an
epistemological
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
and an
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
theory (that is, it is predictive not only of what is known but also how new things will come to be known and how those things are actually structured a priori),
it could be used not only to deconstruct existing (known) knowledge about any phenomena but also can be used as a predictive and prescriptive tool to advance any area of knowledge about any physical, natural, or social phenomena.
DSRP theory posits that the
mind–body problem
The mind–body problem is a philosophical debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond addressing the mere question of how mind and bo ...
and
symbol grounding problem
In cognitive science and semantics, the symbol grounding problem concerns how it is that words ( symbols in general) get their meanings, and hence is closely related to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in ...
that causes a disconnect between our knowledge of physical things and the physical world (the basis of systems thinking) is resolved because our universal DSRP cognitive structures evolved within the boundaries and constraints of the physical, chemical, and biological laws. That is, ontological underlying structure of physical things as well as the epistemological underlying structure of ideas is reconciled under DSRP.
Evaluation and program planning
DSRP has been used to apply systems thinking to the fields of evaluation and program planning, including a
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
-funded initiative to evaluate of large-scale science, technology, engineering, and math (
STEM
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
) education programs, as well as evaluations of the
complexity science
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
education programs of the
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, includ ...
.
Software
DSRP provides the conceptual foundation for Plectica, a cloud-based application.
The card structure and mapping features tacitly reference DSRP rules and provide an environment in which users can create visual maps of DSRP constructs on any topic or process.
Criticism
Not all experts agree that DSRP is definitive of systems thinking, as Cabrera claims.
Gerald Midgley
Gerald Robert Midgley (born 1960) is a British organizational theorist, professor of systems thinking, director of the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, and past president (2013-2014) of the International Society for the System ...
has argued that the "DSRP pattern that Cabrera et al. propose is an interpretation imposed on other perspectives, and they are prepared to dismiss concepts in those perspectives that do not fit."
Midgley argued for pragmatic
methodological pluralism __notoc__
Epistemological pluralism is a term used in philosophy, economics, and virtually any field of study to refer to different ways of knowing things, different epistemological methodologies for attaining a fuller description of a particular f ...
against unification, and he advised: "Rather than seeking to rationalise the systems thinking field, arguably they
abrera et al.would be better off acknowledging that theirs is one perspective amongst many. It is then up to them to argue its coherence and utility while still keeping the door open to insights from other perspectives."
See also
*
Creative problem-solving
Creative problem-solving (CPS) is the mental process of searching for an original and previously unknown solution to a problem. To qualify, the solution must be novel and reached independently. The creative problem-solving process was originally de ...
*
Critical systems thinking
Critical systems thinking (CST) is a systems approach designed to aid decision-makers, and other stakeholders, improve complex problem situations that cross departmental and, often, organizational boundaries. CST sees systems thinking as essential ...
*
Conceptual model
A conceptual model is a representation of a system. It consists of concepts used to help people knowledge, know, understanding, understand, or simulation, simulate a subject the model represents. In contrast, physical models are physical object su ...
*
Double-loop learning Double-loop learning entails the modification of goals or decision-making rules in the light of experience. The first loop uses the goals or decision-making rules, the second loop enables their modification, hence "double-loop". Double-loop learning ...
*
Fallacy of misplaced concreteness
Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical wikt:construct, construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real e ...
*
Function model In systems engineering, software engineering, and computer science, a function model or functional model is a structured representation of the functions ( activities, actions, processes, operations) within the modeled system or subject area.
*
Higher order thinking
Higher-order thinking, known as higher order thinking skills (HOTS), is a concept of education reform based on learning taxonomies (such as Bloom's taxonomy). The idea is that some types of learning require more cognitive processing than others, ...
* ''
Knowing and the Known
''Knowing and the Known'' is a 1949 book by John Dewey and Arthur Bentley.
Overview
As well as a Preface, an Introduction and an Index, the book consists of 12 chapters, or papers, as the authors call them in their introduction. Chapters 1 (Vag ...
''
*
Mental model
A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about thei ...
*
Metamodeling
A metamodel or surrogate model is a model of a model, and metamodeling is the process of generating such metamodels. Thus metamodeling or meta-modeling is the analysis, construction and development of the frames, rules, constraints, models and ...
*
Model-dependent realism Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena. It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, ...
*
Pattern language
A pattern language is an organized and coherent set of ''patterns'', each of which describes a problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a specific field of expertise. The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexa ...
*
Pedagogical patterns A pedagogical pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a problem or task in pedagogy, analogous to how a design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. Pedagogical patterns are used to document and share best practices ...
*
Perspective (cognitive)
In philosophy, a point of view is a specific attitude or manner through which a person thinks about something. This figurative usage of the expression dates back to 1760.
In this meaning, the usage is synonymous with one of the meanings of the te ...
*
Problem solving
Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
*
Structure chart
A structure chart (SC) in software engineering and organizational theory is a chart which shows the breakdown of a system to its lowest manageable levels.IRS (2008) "Configuration Management" In: ''IRS Resources Part 2. Information Technology Chap ...
*
Systems analysis
Systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them". Another view sees system analysis as a problem-solving technique that b ...
*
Systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
*
*
View model
A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set of ''views'' to be used in the construction of a system architecture, software architecture, ...
* ''
World Hypotheses
''World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence'', by Stephen C. Pepper (1942), presents four relatively adequate world hypotheses (or world views or conceptual systems) in terms of their root metaphors: formism (similarity), mechanism (machine), contextu ...
''
References
Further reading
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* {{cite journal , last1=Yearworth , first1=Mike , last2=White , first2=Leroy , date=September 2014 , title=The non-codified use of problem structuring methods and the need for a generic constitutive definition , journal=
European Journal of Operational Research
The ''European Journal of Operational Research'' (EJOR) is a peer-reviewed academic journal in operations research. It was founded in 1977 by the Association of European Operational Research Societies, and is published by Elsevier, with Roman Sł ...
, volume=237 , issue=3 , pages=932–945 , doi=10.1016/j.ejor.2014.02.015 , hdl=10871/26098 , hdl-access=free
External links
Cabrera Research Lab
Systems analysis
Systems theory