What does it mean to analyze something? How do I know when I have completed analysis? Is my analysis correct?

I have, I am embarrassed to say, given little thought to these questions. For a teacher of Social Studies this is an egregious oversight. The Washington State Grade Level Expectations clearly state that the ability to analyze is a critical component of what students should know and be able to do. It would seem that a skill so elemental to a content area would be a focus of strategies in the same way that the ability to write persuasively or to read for meaning drive much language arts instruction.

Analysis skills are part and parcel of many Social Studies methods. Authentic inquiry is impossible without analysis as are any truly effective debate or discussion activities. The problem is not that students are not analyzing it is that the analysis is a skill that is hidden behind the product and content of the work. It is not taught as a stand-alone concept and as such remains something that may be explicitly assessed and not explicitly taught.

Last year, during some departmental meetings, I started to play around with the idea of codifying the tasks an effective thinker completes as part of effective analysis. This was the end of a longer process that started with my struggle to get students to move beyond comparing and contrasting. The list below shows the basic structure of what I have come up with, but in no way is a exhaustive.

An approach to analyzing…

The process of analysis has a deceptively simple definition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as the separation of a whole into its component parts. This simple process of breakdown becomes quite complex when the nature of the whole or of the part is not clearly delineated or the components are not easily knowable. The application of analysis to complex historical or philosophical problems demands layers of related analytic processes that all point back to the same issue. Consider the task of understanding analysis.

To define this word I will have to introduce and define other concepts which in turn will have their own dependant concepts. This could go on ad infinitum (or nauseum). Regardless of the complexity the structure of the analytic task remains quite consistent. Five steps emerge, that when completed assure that effective analysis has taken place.

Step 1 – Observation / Research

The first step involves the collection of information. What can you learn about the object, issue or idea that you are analyzing? The process of observation can literally be observational. In case of an artifact, photograph or document simply looking at the item can generate valuable information that can be used in the process of analysis. More commonly the process or observation takes the form of research; using other sources to construct a factual understanding of the object of the analysis.

Step 2 – Information Assessment

Once a set of information has been gathered the information must be assessed to determine if it is adequate. Do you know enough about he object of the analysis to make any substantive statement about its components? If not, more observation is required. If the information is adequate than the process moves on.

Step 3 – Application of Logic

This is where things get tricky. Analysis demands that an explanation be offered. The validity of the explanation depends on the facts that underlie it and the relationship between these facts. This is where techniques like comparing and contrasting, pushing to logical extremes or the scientific method become useful as tools of analysis. Formal logic, though sometimes specious, can be useful as well.

Step 4 – Drawing specific conclusion

Spell it out. How does the information collected and the logical framework constructed directly relate to the specific issue in question. If you are analyzing the causes of the recent recession, the explanation should comment only on the recent recession, not on other recessions and not on recessions in general. This is a tough concept for many students to adhere to. I am not sure why, but we have a tendency to generalize too liberally and sometimes without warrant.

Step 5 – Generalizing

You’ve gathered information, assessed it, given is logical structure in support of an explanation of a specific object of analysis. Now you recycle that logic and consider other similar objects of analysis. Does the explanation at the heart of the analysis still apply? If it does then extend your explanation to these objects as well.