ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a historical perspective of the evolution of educational research and, more specifically, research methods in the instructional design and technology field. It starts with discussions in educational research that were often documented in the 1980s related to the persistence of positivistic views and post-positivistic thoughts. The chapter then continues to further explore the educational research literature into the 1990s. By then, it was clear that educational research was evolving, researchers were full of desire to immerse and investigate in the real world of teaching and learning. To understand learners and their experiences (cognitive, physical, and emotional), researchers needed to evolve from traditional ideologies of research to a more intricate research method that carefully considers “context.” For the learning design and technology researchers, in the early 2000s, this became particularly critical as complete, complex, and interactive learning environments became tokens of interest by researchers in the educational technology field. The chapters finish with a perspective of the current state of research in the learning design and technology field.
