Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

which challenges existing schemas, a process of re-organization and adaptation occurs,leading to new schemas. This is referred to as ‘cognitive growth’. Learners construct newcognitive structures through a process of ‘assimilation’, which refers to the integration ofnew knowledge into existing structures, and ‘accommodation’, which encompasses theadjustment of the existing structure to integrate new knowledge. The result of this process isto place the learner’s cognitive structure on to a higher level of thinking. Another model iscalled the experiential learning model, which sees learning as an ongoing process wherebyknowledge is created through the transformation of experience and a reflective process. In1975 James March and Johan Olson advanced this model of experiential learning 158 :rulesinterpretationactionoutcomesFigure 6: basic model of experiential learningA later model is interesting because it involves the element of application and testing, afeature Boyd refers to in The Conceptual Spiral when talking about the nature of science andengineering 159 :Concrete experienceApplying & testing conclusionsObservation and reflectionForming mental modelsFigure 7: refined model of experiential learning158 James G. March and Johan P.Olson, ‘The Uncertainty of the Past: Organizational Learning UnderAmbiguity’, European Journal of Political Research, 3 (1975): 147-71.159 Edward Borodzicz and Kees van Haperen, ‘Individual and Group Learning in Crisis Simulations’,in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 10, No.3, September 2002, p.141. The authors havecopied the model from D. Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development,which was published in 1984. Later studies and concepts such as Recognition Primed Decisionmakingexplore the influence of training and experience in similar loop models, affirming Boyd’s model (seefor instance (see Gary Klein, ‘Strategies of Decision Making’, Military Review, May 1989; and Sources ofPower, How People Make Decisions, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma, 1999)). Interestingly though, Boyd’sreading list does not list any of the well known works on crisis decision making theory emerging frompolitical science during the seventies and eighties, such as Graham Allison’s landmark study Essence ofDecision (1971), Robert Jervis’ Perception and Misperception in International Politics (1976) and Irvin Janis’Groupthink ( 1982). For a recent compilation of insights concerning decision making under adversarialconditions see for instance Yaacov Y.I. Vertzberger, Risk Taking and Decisionmaking, StanfordUniversity Press, 1998.111