One of the ways I try to make sense of my graduate school studies is finding real-life applications to theories. I try to picture myself listening to the scholar, philosopher, etc. and either put myself in their shoes or imagine what their audience would be thinking. (I’ve found that this is a helpful tool in Bible study, too, but today I’m talking about school, in particular.)

I often picture other people who remind me of the scholar/author. For instance, my dear husband has a very Socratic way of answering questions with questions, which drives me batty, but it did give me a greater appreciation for Plato and his contemporaries.

This week, we’re reading about behavioralism and post-behavioralism, and I had a couple of “A-ha!” moments that I thought I’d share with you:

One has to do with metrics, which is a way to quantify job performance. In my field it could mean the number of grant proposals submitted each year, dollar amount raised and number of personal visits to donors. Metrics have their place in goal-setting, but I do not believe they should be the end-all-be-all to performance evaluation, because there are too many factors outside of our control. I can control (in a limited sense) the number of proposals I submit, but if my goal is to send out as many as possible (aka, the “shotgun approach”), it might not be as effective as sending out fewer, strategic requests (the “arrow approach”) that may have a better chance of getting funded. Metrics would be considered a behavioral tool, because it’s measurable.

The other lightbulb moment came when I realized why I like to make practical applications to theories. That’s a post-behavioral mindset! I don’t think I’ve ever labeled myself into a certain school of thought before, but from what I’ve read so far, post-behavioral seems to fit. This perspective wants to find the link between conducting practical research and putting the research to use. What does it mean, and what do we do with the information? Those are questions the post-behavioralist wants to know, and those are the very questions I think about while I’m reading.

It’s ok if you think I’m a dork; now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some white tape for my glasses …