por What is the Gavilan model?
He Gavilan model is a four-step system developed to aid academic investigations and problem solving through a rational approach. It is mainly used in the educational field, but it can be applied to all types of situations in which information is required to be collected and applied.
The main purpose of the Gavilán model is to show a practical way in which researchers or students can approach the process of collecting information. In this way, it is a guide for those people who need to use reason to solve a specific problem.
Initially it was developed by Gabriel «Gavilán» Piedrahita, who used it to teach students to carry out research projects without the need to «copy and paste» information from the Internet. Since then its use has spread, due to the analysis it makes of the steps involved in any investigation.
Features of the Gavilan model
The Gavilán model was developed for its application in the classroom, as a way of teaching students to gather information and carry out tests in an appropriate way.
Therefore, this endowed it with a series of specific characteristics that cannot be understood without understanding this background. Next we will see some of the most important ones.
Designed to work in the classroom
Because the main users of the Gavilán model were going to be primary and secondary school students, it is a very simplified model for collecting information. Each of the four steps that make it up are very well structured, so that it is very easy to follow them.
On the other hand, the original model had a series of recommendations and didactic tools designed to teach the teacher how to apply it within the classes.
Focused on a specific topic
Again, since its main use would be with children, the Gavilán model focuses on studying specific topics or skills rather than broader ones.
This translates, for example, into the use of activities and very short steps, in such a way that they are easy to follow by young students.
Lack of final reflection
Contrary to many other information gathering and analysis models, the Gavilán model does not propose a last step in which all the previous ones are analyzed.
This is because it was intended as a way to teach students to collect data, not to be used as a scientific research method.
Steps of the Gavilan model
The Gavilán model is divided into four main steps: define the problem, search for and evaluate the information, analyze the information, and synthesize and use it.
In turn, these four steps present several subdivisions; Next we will see a summary of all these.
Step 1: define the problem
Before starting to investigate any topic, it is necessary to establish in an orderly manner what you want to discover or what questions you want to answer.
This is done to prevent students from starting to gather information without stopping to think about what they already know and what they don’t know about a topic.
To achieve this purpose, the Gavilán model contemplates four sub-steps:
Ask the initial question
The first thing we must do is ask ourselves a question that guides our investigation. What do we want to know or discover? What question can be more relevant to the topic we want to investigate?
These initial questions should be complex and include several aspects, in such a way that they lead to many other questions and a more efficient use of the information collected.
analyze the question
Will the question we have chosen help us better organize the information? What hypotheses could we propose based on the initial question? What kind of information do we need to answer it?
formulate a plan
Once the students know exactly what they need to know in order to understand the subject in depth, the next step is to carry out a first planning on the way in which all the relevant information is going to be collected. For this, the most important thing is to decide on which subtopics it is necessary to investigate.
Ask other questions
In the event that the topic is very broad, it is necessary to ask several questions in addition to the initial one. In this way, students will ensure that they are thorough in their search for information.
Step 2: search and evaluate the information
In the second step, students select and use different tools to collect all the information necessary for their investigation.
To carry out this step correctly, it is not only necessary to find information on the subject, but also to analyze if the information is relevant and correct.
The Internet is a great source of data on all kinds of topics, but students must be careful about the sources they choose for their research. The teacher should make sure to teach children to distinguish between trustworthy websites and those that are not so reliable.
Step 3: Analyze the information
Once all the relevant information has been collected from reliable sources, students should be able to analyze it and build a coherent narrative from it.
For this, the most important thing is that they use their capacity for synthesis and that they try to answer both the initial question and the secondary ones.
Step 4: Synthesize and use the information
Finally, students must be able to use all the information they have collected to draw a general conclusion and create a concrete product with it.
This product can range from a PowerPoint presentation to a more complex research report.
Example of the Gavilan model
An example of how a research process would be carried out using the Gavilán model will be briefly presented below. The subject to study would be the influence of sugar on health, with the aim of making a presentation in class in front of the rest of the classmates.
Step 1: Ask the initial questions
The initial question would be the following: What impact does sugar have on our health? In order to make the topic more specific, several sub-questions could be added, such as:
Is it healthy to eat a lot of sugar?
What is the relationship between sugar and being overweight?
Step 2: Find and evaluate information
In this second step it would be necessary to choose reliable sources to collect the necessary information. In this case, we could use data from the Ministry of Health, from scientific research published in magazines, from pages related to nutrition, among others.
Step 3: Analyze the information
Once enough data has been collected on the subject, the next step would be to analyze it until being able to build a coherent discourse on the impact of sugar on our health.
To do this, and because it is a complex subject, we would have to be able to understand why some data seems to contradict itself and what the latest scientific research says on the subject.
Step 4: Use the information
Once a coherent discourse has been created from the information, and since the objective is to make a presentation in the classroom, it would be necessary to make an entertaining and easy-to-follow presentation.
To do this, one of the best ways is to create a series of slides that collect the most important points that have been discovered on the subject.