ABSTRACT

‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’ This quotation, attributed to William Butler Yeats, reflects the two sides of the behaviourist/constructivist debate. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the work of constructivist theorists significantly influenced the evolution of education, as researchers increasingly came to understand how people learn. But as national policy, school policy and the pedagogy of individual teachers evolved to reflect this view, a dichotomy emerged as behaviourist practices still continued to underpin the way that children were motivated to learn.