ABSTRACT
Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006), in their article preceding this volume, characterized instruction based on constructivist views as “minimally guided.” That view persisted in this volume in the chapters by Sweller and Kirschner, the first two authors of that article, and is also reflected in the chapters by Klahr and Mayer. Indeed, Klahr describes his discovery-learning comparison condition as,
“Rather than being a parody of the lack of structure in discovery learning, our discovery condition actually included more scaffolding than discovery learning as typically practiced” (this volume, p. 297). And Mayer proposes to “view constructivism as a prescription for instruction in which learners must be behaviorally active during learning” (this volume, p. 184). He goes on to contrast constructivism with his perspective, a perspective that emphasizes cognitive rather than behavioral activity. Typically, these views persisted into the discussions-after these authors had read chapters by constructivists. Yet, the constructivist authors have argued consistently that guidance is essential; that it is simply a matter of the context of the guidance. And in an examination of the research described in the chapters and in the key journals, e.g., The Journal of the Learning Sciences, we find numerous studies where there is considerable guidance, even direct instruction (Schwartz, Lindgren, & Lewis, this volume), and an emphasis on the need for a consistent structure (guidance) not only in the immediate instructional context but in the larger schooling context in which the instruction occurs (Herman & Gomez, this volume; Duschl & Duncan, this volume; Kolodner et al., 2003). Indeed, there are no studies described in this volume where guidance is absent. The constructivists have their own myopic view, seemingly adverse to talking about mechanisms, in particular, information-processing mechanisms, that may underlie the effectiveness of guidance or scaffolding. As a consequence, the rationale for guidance and prescription for guidance remains ill-defined. Klahr (this volume), quite reasonably, calls for an operational definition of the various constructivist instructional models-definitions that would identify the key variables. I can understand the frustration of Klahr and the misinterpretations of Kirschner (this volume), Sweller (this volume), and Mayer (this volume) when the constructivist instructional approach is so ill-defined. Indeed, perhaps the constructivists should design a learning environment to support learning about the instructional implications of constructivism-certainly an ill-structured problem. These differences make communication difficult at best. I will address three factors that I think underlie this disconnect between the two theoretical perspectives: a theoretical myopia, a focus on process vs. product, and the cognitive load faced by the researchers.
