A Nudge is Best: Helping Students through the Perry Scheme of Intellectual Development

In "Critical Issues in the Assessment of Student Development," Gary Han son (1982) asserts that "our assessment of student development must be re fined to become more diagnostic in na ture. ... A closer link must be made between the constructs of student de velopment and their antecedent causes" (61). He then posits a concrete instance, that of an instructor aware of the Perry Scheme attempting to move students from a dualistic to a multiplis tic mode of knowing, noting that the teacher would find a half-dozen ques tions helpful. Among these, three stand out: "What teaching method or style challenges students who think in dualistic ways? What causes some stu dents to adopt a more complex mode of thinking? How much change from one mode of thinking to another can be expected in a year, a semester, or a month?" (61) As a teacher who has worked con sciously and conscientiously with the Perry Scheme in the classroom for more than ten years, I have reached some tentative answers to Hanson's questions, which if not fully correct are