ABSTRACT

Psychological, and educational, research on learning is primarily research on how children do learn. Such research is empirical in that observational or experimental evidence is produced to confirm or refute some hypothesis about how learning takes place. This chapter reviews the position adopted by instructional psychologists and subjected to criticism. It argues that instructional psychologists commit themselves to three objectionable views: a preoccupation with prescription; a disregard for the distinction between learning-propositions and learning-principles; and oversight about the status of psychological research on learning. The chapter considers the question of whether there can be a theory of instruction. Instructional psychology is taken by a host of distinguished sponsors to be a science whose central aim is to provide instructional recommendations on the basis of empirical evidence that arises from psychological, and educational, research. A metatheory of instructional psychology is a theory about those features which are central to a theory of instructional psychology.