Big Data Seminar 1: What is Complexity Theory; How does it inform the precipitation and sustenance

12:45-14:00, 18 Jan 2017

Taipo Campus: D1-LP-07

Speaker: Professor Mark Mason

This seminar considers – from the perspective of complexity theory – the potential contribution of ‘big data’ in precipitating and sustaining change in education. Complexity theory’s concept of emergence implies that, given a significant degree of complexity in a particular environment – whether an education system or a particular school – new properties and behaviours emerge that are not necessarily contained in the essence of the constituent elements, or easily able to be predicted from a knowledge of initial conditions. These concepts of emergent phenomena from a critical mass, associated with notions of lock-in, path dependence, and inertial momentum, contribute to a perspective on continuity and change that indicates what conditions might need to be in place for the emergence of sustainable, positive, school- or system-wide change in education. It is suggested that the complexity generated by a network of multiple integrated and mutually supportive initiatives will precipitate and sustain change more successfully than will individual and isolated initiatives. Initiating and sustaining change in a complex system thus requires sensitivity to a multiplicity of factors that compound and mitigate each other in recursive and cyclical patterns, and the design of an integrated suite of interventions on multiple levels, from multiple points, and that take into account this multiplicity of factors. Good ‘big data’ is critical to inform this process.

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