constructivist pedagogy in conventional on- campus and ...kodu.ut.ee › ~triinm ›...

Learning and Instruction 11 (2001) 87–111www.elsevier.com/locate/learninstruc

Constructivist pedagogy in conventional on-campus and distance learning practice: an

exploratory investigation

Gershon Tenenbauma,*, Som Naidub, Olugbemiro Jegedec,Jon Austind

a College of Education, Department of Educational Research, Florida State University,236 Stone Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4450, USA

b Multimedia Education Unit, University of Melbourne, Australiac CRDL, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

d Faculty of Education, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

Abstract

This study attempts to identify characteristics of constructivism and their presence in face-to-face and open and distance learning (ODL) environments. In phase 1 of this study, a 6-week discussion through an electronic mailing list was carried out to explore the concept ofconstructivism, the process underlying constructivist learning and its facilitation. In the secondphase, a questionnaire was developed and later analysed to ascertain the presence of con-structivist principles in formal higher education instructional activities. The results of thesestudies were very similar and foregrounded the following seven components of constructivistteaching and learning: (1) arguments, discussions, debates, (2) conceptual conflicts anddilemmas, (3) sharing ideas with others, (4) materials and measures targeted toward solutions,(5) reflections and concept investigation, (6) meeting student needs, and (7) making meaning,real-life examples. Based on tutorials analysis (phase 1) and surveys (phase 2) in one univer-sity, the findings indicate that these components are not sufficiently present in any of thesettings which were investigated, despite the positive intentions that instructional designershad in their planning phase. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Constructivism; Instructional design; Higher education

* Corresponding author. Tel.:+1-850-644-8780; fax:+1-850-644-8776.E-mail address:[email protected] (G. Tenenbaum).

0959-4752/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S0959 -4752(00 )00017-7

88 G. Tenenbaum et al. / Learning and Instruction 11 (2001) 87–111

1. Introduction

The continuing development of knowledge and learning is viewed as a cognitiveactivity involving the ongoing construction of mental representations of reality. Thisevidences a shift in dominant educational philosophy in which learning has beenequated primarily with the attainment of behavioural outcomes. So significant is thisascendant pedagogic philosophy that Lunenberg (1998) maintains that constructivismmay be the most significant recent trend in education relative to the dynamic relation-ship between how teachers teach and how children learn. Serious attention thereforeneeds to be paid to its pedagogic potential in all learning environments and contexts.

This shift demands the concurrent development of innovative pedagogical prac-tices and orientation for instructional science. This paper reports on an exploratorystudy, the aim of which was to identify the presence of forms of constructivist peda-gogical principles in a sample of undergraduate units offered by a regional Australianuniversity in both traditional on-campus and distance education mode.

In spite of the rapid embrace such constructivist pedagogy has had within otherareas of education (see, for example, O’Donnell, 1997; Steffe & Gale, 1995; Tobin,1991), in the experience of the authors, distance education (DE) has found it difficultto shift from its foundation in objectivism. However, current developments in openand distance learning (ODL), driven in large part by the increased application ofrapidly changing forms of interactive communication technologies, present opport-unities for instructional design to break away from conventionally scheduled, behav-iourally dominated paradigms. One such possibility requires a new framework forinstructional design, which is based on constructivist approaches to learning. Theseattempt to maximize students’ construction of their own knowledge and control oftheir own learning. This study was designed to empirically define and examine keyfeatures of constructivism and their incorporation in traditional and ODL environ-ments within a regional Australian university setting.

Instructional design underpinned by behaviourist approaches has been aimed atobjectivity of instructional processes and the certainty of the “truthfulness” of theoutcomes of the teaching–learning process. In emphasizing the role of feedback andreinforcement, stimulus control was believed to shape, alter, and augment the stu-dents’ learning outcomes. Instructional design in that context was aimed at providingextrinsic rewards so that learners’ behaviours could be, to a large extent, controlled,directed and evaluated against external standards (i.e. goals and objectives). Self-interpretations and self-reflections were minimized (Wagner & McCombs, 1995),and, in some instances, severely penalized.

A more cognitivist approach insists that the learner process information in a man-ner which relies heavily on the interaction between working, short-, and long-termmemory capacities. Thus, instructional designs were directed to encourage problem-solving in order to develop cognitive capacities (Tennyson, 1992). According toTennyson, learning and instructional designs ought to be dynamic and interactive toenable the learner to make this memory-based interaction. Jonassen (1991) termedthis process “mentalistic”, in that it establishes a dynamic and interactive environ-ment and stimulates cognitive development. “Computer-based learning” and “task

89G. Tenenbaum et al. / Learning and Instruction 11 (2001) 87–111

analysis” programs, among others, were aimed at achieving such goals. The mainconcern with the cognitive approach was its limitation for enhancing mental recon-struction. It has not resulted in a shift that encourages learners to construct andreconstruct their mental schemes in relation to a changing external world(Jonassen, 1991).

The constructivist approach, however, views knowledge as an entity, which ismentally constructed via the actions and experiences that the learner undergoes withthe immediate learning and broader social environments. Knowledge is actively con-structed by the interaction between the learner and external objects through adap-tation of and to the experiential world. Consequently, through the establishment ofmalleable mental constructs (Driver, 1988; Glaserfeld, 1987; Wheatley, 1993), learn-ing occurs. The meaning of the external world according to constructivism is sociallynegotiated. Thus, external reality is likely to be perceived differently by differentlearners, and it is through social negotiation that common meaning is constructed(Candy, 1991). To enhance learning, the environment should be constructed in amanner that enhances the continual adaptation of the learner’s mental schema to theexternal environment through consistent interactions. Viability, perturbation inrelation to learners’ perception of knowledge viability, and social negotiations, arethe central features that the instructional designer must meet with respect to construc-tivism (Taylor, 1990).

In ODL, learners are not usually in close physical proximity to their teachers, withtechnology and other factors mediating the learning experiences provided. This shiftin locus of activity requires that students work more independently, creatively andactively than in many “traditional” face-to-face settings (Wagner & McCombs,1995). While obviously applicable to all forms of learning, ODL students benefitfrom instruction, which motivates them to learn, allows learners to exercise controlover their learning experience, and requires them to be accountable for their ownlearning outcomes.

The new philosophy of constructivism, and especially the paradigm of constructiv-ist epistemology, then, would seem to have crucial implications for instructionaldesign (ID) in open and distance learning settings. If concepts like learning andknowledge assume different connotations in constructivist epistemology, it would beseemingly worthwhile to find out what learning and knowledge actually mean to“learners at a distance” and to the instructional teams who develop their studymaterials in order to fashion an effective, principled guideline for instructional designfor a constructivist environment. Additionally, personal experience, everyday occur-rences, and environmental influences provide rich sources for constructing meaningsof concepts and phenomena, but there is always the concern that these idiosyncraticmeanings may conflict with those being presented to the learner through instructionalmaterials. The problem created for instructional designers by the adoption of a con-structivist pedagogy resides in the notion that such a pedagogy raises the spectre ofknowledge relativism in an educational system largely predicated upon the attainmentof specific, previously-identified performance based competencies. Constructivismimplies situated cognition in authentic activities (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).In such situations, learners are given opportunities to draw from their own experi-


ences, interpretations, and situational relevance in matching instruction to theirrealities for any given situation (Wagner & McCombs, 1995).

The “apparent incompatibility [of constructivism] with the basic philosophy oftraditional teaching and learning” (Lai-Chong & Wong, 1995, p. 301) leads to aposition where one needs, in essence, to assume a “side” in the pedagogic battle.That is, there seems little possibility for hybrid forms of pedagogy to develop fromthe camps of constructivist and non-constructivist advocates.

Spigner-Littles and Chalon (1999), in evaluating cognitive and constructivist learn-ing theories for their congruence with the needs of “older learners” — and, arguably,most university students would fall into this category — found that these students“learn most effectively when new information is connected to and built upon a stud-ent’s prior knowledge and real-life experiences tend to do well when allowed tohave some control over the learning environment, and respond best to collaborativelearning environments, in which the instructor and students provide and share infor-mation” (Spigner-Littles & Chalon, 1999, pp. 203–204).

When considering these features of older learners, Spigner-Littles and Chalon con-clude that:

Our observations of older learners tend to support the constructivist learningtheory in that we found knowledge to be developed internally, rather than simplytransmitted by an instructor to a passive student. We also found that learningoccurs most effectively when the mind filters incoming information, and connectsthat information to past knowledge and current relevance. Learners must constructtheir own schemas … and solutions to problems by actively revising, restructuring,experimenting with, and placing the new information into their existing cognitivestructures. As a result, effective learning is based on reflections, personal insight,and permanent change in behaviour (Spigner-Littles & Chalon, 1999, p. 204)

The instructional principles of constructivist pedagogy, which guide matters of thenature and quality of educational materials and the learning environment, however,are unclear. The purposes underlying the current study, therefore, were: (a) to deter-mine the key features of an instructional design approach that derives from a con-structivist orientation, (b) to make explicit these features so that learners can identifyand evaluate their presence in and utility for their personal learning experiences, and,(c) to examine the extent to which these features are present in selected units offeredin undergraduate programs at the university level.

The study was conducted in two separate, related phases. The first stage usedqualitative methods in order to draw out a range of ideas about the essential featuresof constructivist approaches to teaching and learning and to attempt to come to someunderstanding of how these principles or approaches might appear in a concretizedform in a small sample of undergraduate university units of study. The second stage,which was largely quantitative in nature, attempted to triangulate the findings fromstage one and to broaden the database through the development and administrationof a questionnaire to a larger number of students. The purpose of this latter part


was to generalize the necessarily locally based findings from stage one to a broaderuniversity population.

The report that follows will initially describe and discuss the first, qualitative phaseof the study and will then address the methodology and results of the second phase.The concluding section will present some tentative thoughts about the relationshipbetween constructivist learning principles and university-based teaching and instruc-tional design.

2. Phase 1: methodology

2.1. Electronic discussion group

In order to attempt to come to something of an informed, shared understandingof what might currently constitute the essential features of a constructivist approachto instructional design, a special discussion on constructivism and instructionaldesign took place for approximately 6 weeks (2/10/95–12/11/95) through the elec-tronic discussion list of the Special Interest Group on Research of the Open andDistance Learning Association of Australia (RESODLAA). The members of thisdiscussion group, 12 in number, were considered to be expert in the field, havingcontributed extensively to the literature on constructivism, and were drawn fromAustralia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. Thisserved as an initial data gathering exercise, as well as allowing the research teamto ascertain the extent to which professionals involved in open and distance educationare familiar with and interested in constructivism.

Several issues for discussion, structured in such a way as to generate useful infor-mation for this study, were introduced to the discussion list. These issues wereintended to provoke dialogue about the possibilities resident within constructivistepistemology for instructional design. Some of the questions injected into the dis-cussion were: (a) what is constructivism and how are learning and knowledge viewedfrom this perspective? (b) How does one facilitate constructivist learning? (c) Whatare the implications of constructivist principles for designing courses of university-level study, especially in distance learning modes?

The electronic discussion was blueprinted and a content analysis of the text ofthat discussion was conducted. Three experts in instructional design and constructiv-ism who were not involved in the research team were convened to discuss the sum-mary findings from the RESODLAA discussion in order to validate the data.

2.2. Telephone-mediated tutorials (tele-tutorials) analysis

The key features of this discussion were defined, categorized, and then used forevaluating 17 telephone-mediated tutorials conducted with distance education stu-dents by academic staff of the university. These tutorials were audio-recorded bythe Distance Education Centre of the university for analysis. The purpose of this stage


of the study was to document the presence of factors identifiable as characterizing thepedagogical interaction as primarily constructive, cognitive, or objective in nature.

The categories derived from the discussion list data were conceptualized as thekey features of constructivism and their presence in the telephone tutorials waspresented in terms of the percentage of the total tutorial time.

2.3. Study materials analysis

In parallel, these key features of constructivism were used to evaluate studymaterials for selected units offered in distance education mode by the universityduring semester one, 1996. All units were offered at the undergraduate level, andwere randomly selected from a pool of units that contained a minimum of one tele-phone-mediated tutorial as a part of their instructional repertoire. In all, 20 unitswere included in the study, representing the faculties of the university as follows:(a) Arts (3 units), (b) Business (4 units), (c) Commerce (3 units), (d) Education (4units), (e) Engineering (3 units), and (f) Sciences (3 units).

This analysis was undertaken to attempt to determine principal pedagogical philo-sophies underpinning the development of the materials by the instructional teams.The presence of each of the critical features of constructivism identified earlier wasnoted on a four-point Likert type scale ranging from “1 — emphasized strongly” to“5 — not at all emphasized”. The various content analyses were used to triangulateinformation sources and to arrive at sound and valid results and conclusions.

3. Phase 1 results: discussion list

3.1. Discussion list

The summary of the 6 weeks on-line discussion via the RESODLAA discussionlist is divided into three sections: (a) the concept of constructivism, (b) the processesunderlying constructivist learning, and (c) facilitation of constructivist learning.

3.1.1. The concept of constructivismA clear point to emerge from the discussion was that, no matter the currency of

constructivist approaches in education, its meaning is largely uncertain, or, at best,hazy. One of the participants put this point succinctly:

One of the fundamental problems in the discussion is that constructivism basedon usage, even in the current discussion, does not have an agreed upon meaning(D.D. 27/10).

Constructivism, for one of the participants,

is not about methods or practices, but it is a radical departure in thought aboutthe nature of knowing, hence of learning and thus of teaching (D.D. 27/10).


He insists that radical constructivism is “genuinely different”, that, unlike “theobjectivist/realist (who) thinks there is a definite meaning out there derivable fromexperience with the phenomena for the students to find or reconstruct”, the radicalconstructivist does not really believe that. It is this refusal to view truth or knowledgein a reified sense that clearly distinguishes the constructivist epistemology. For thisparticipant, what “knowledge” means is at the core of the conceptual debate, andthereby, “the knowledge which interests me could be called viable explanatoryschemes” which are derived from and modified by “meaning-making”.

Other participants viewed constructivism as a particular modification of currentdominant (educational) views of knowledge that, as such, could be attained byaccretion to rather than by outright replacement of existing epistemologies. Twoparticipants suggested that constructivism could be incorporated into existing knowl-edge by individuals. One asks: “Do we have to throw out one paradigm to allowanother to take its place?” (L.K. 23/10). Some struggle with the disequilibrium,others simply fit their current belief systems into the “new theory”, while foranother participant

constructivism does not suggest unique practices distinguished from all otherlearning models. It merely suggests using instructional strategies that are alreadywell known to be effective (E.R. 21/10).

A critical feature of constructivism, according to the exchanges between the parti-cipants in this electronic discussion, is that of the locus of relevance, authority andownership of truth or knowledge residing exclusively with the learner:

the most important issue in constructivist learning, I believe, is ownership(D.J. 2/11).

The difficulty of determining the relative worth of such seemingly idiosyncratic,and, presumably at times, conflicting and contested, knowledge was canvassed, with“truth” being determined by a measure of viability:

“Viability” is a quality of one’s (set of) constructs; “Reality”, is a source ofnew stimuli by which to test them (K.M. 22/10).

3.1.2. Processes underlying constructivist learningThe most significant epistemological process in operation within a constructivist

paradigm is that of the social negotiation of meaning and the veracity of knowledge:

We need to listen to what others are saying to try to determine whether we doin fact understand their view and to test our understanding of their view as wepose questions and make statements intended to be a challenge to interpret easilyin other views… The failure to attend to meaning making underlies (as a cause)the failures in performance and the ability to reliably remember information, as


well as, a multitude of other shortcomings that we see in our “product” (D.D.23/10).

Learning, for this group of discussants, was about making meaning, and not theincorporation of pre-existent and pre-determined performance-based criteria. One ofthe participants gave an example of what he meant by the importance of personalrelevance in meaning making from a constructivist perspective. In regard to learninga list of telephone numbers “the important thing is whether the experiencer decidesto explain them or interpret them as ‘phone numbers’”. The point of authentic learn-ing occurs, in this example, not in the committing of the numbers to memory, butin the process of constructing some form of idiosyncratic schema within which tohouse this list:

The really important stuff happened when the phone number scheme was beingconstructed (D.D. 23/10).

The point here is that, in this particular example, if the “scheme” is not in the mind,the numbers will not be heard as “phone numbers”.

A further crucial process at play here is the importance of continuity and disconti-nuity. One of the participants suggested that

whatever sort of meaning-processing device consciousness is, it responds toconsistency of patterns over time (and, for that matter, ceases to respond if thepattern is too consistent; it saturates the same as any other organismic sense)(K.M. 27/10).

While this view of continuity of engagement has been explored elsewhere (see, forexample, Sweller’s notion of the “automation” of schemas (1994)), the participantshere seemed to view this balance between similarity and innovation in the develop-ment of cognitive schemas as a significant part of the constructivist epistemologicalprocess, albeit one that is fraught with frustration and (to some) irreconcilable diffi-culties for a social pedagogy:

how can one individual “see” a part of the universe and in great detail describeit and explain it, and someone else can “see” the same phenomenon and developan equally plausible explanation that does not fit at all with the other? (L.K.23/10).

One of these “difficulties” with constructivist pedagogy is that of the seeming indi-viduality of the learning process envisioned by the epistemology. If one descendsinto a postmodern nihilism, where relativity is measure of veracity, how is it possibleto generate a community knowledge base? The participants addressed the individualnature of the constructivist learning process on a number of occasions:

It is possible to influence mental model development yet mental models willalways be, to some degree, individualistic. Individuals and groups make sense of


the world based on their personal experiences and more importantly, their personalneeds. …When the learner perceives a need, learning, especially constructivistlearning is more likely to occur (D.J. 31/10).

3.1.3. Facilitation of constructivist learningParticipants identified four types of constructivist “strategies” that incorporated

into an enhanced pedagogical practice for instructional designers. These classes orcategories of strategies were: project-based learning environments, case-based learn-ing environments, computer-based supports, and cognitive tools (mind tools).Whether these “situations”, support systems, or tools, are indeed used constructivist-ically depends, as one participant put it, “on the assumptions that the teachers main-tain about learning”. Indeed, one of the participants cautioned that the four classesof support,could be constructivist but are not necessarily so, and says that “mostare drawn from objectivist traditions” and as such, do not carry the same epistemo-logical intent or aim as they would when put in the service of a constructivist peda-gogy (D.J. 2/11).

In considering the facilitation of constructivist learning, the point was made thatlearning the environment should be “active/manipulative, constructive, collaborative,intentional, conversational, conceptualized, and reflective”. The role of the teacheror instructor remains, as in any pedagogical paradigm and as alluded to earlier, cru-cial. In the view of the discussants here, teachers can “affect or influence meaningssomeone else might construct” (D.J. 23/10). Evaluating learning in the constructivistcontext presents considerable difficulty. One way of conceptualizing an approach toevaluation in constructivist pedagogy involves what one of the participants termed“viability” — “How viable are the learner’s constructions and productions?”. Butwhile she can accept the “viability test” for willing students, this participantwarns that

it’s those who don’t reveal any commitment or interest in changing the stateof their knowledge who are the challenge (O.K. 30/10)’

In linking learning to the environmental context of the learner, evaluation forone participant presents as a major hurdle to the successful implementation of aconstructivist pedagogy:

I would need to see evidence at a micro level of the degree of student engage-ment in the environment provided. This is expensive assessment (maybe less soas technology provides the environment) (D.J. 31/10).

Of course, the whole question of the ethics and legitimacy of the evaluative processfrom a constructivist perspective itself was seriously questioned by one member ofthe group:

If we feel that we can identify behaviour we observe as being aligned with thebehaviour of a given level of expertise, we judge that the student has accepted


the mental model. However, we cannot possibly know this. In my opinion it isnone of our business. Our business is to certify that a given student can performadequately in a given context (E.W.S. 1/11).

In summary, based on the RESODLAA discussion, eight indices of constructivismwere identified. These were:

1. ethos/environment (learner-centred; tutor or content centred; neutral orindecisive);

2. authenticity of content (realistic/real world; theoretical);3. learner’s personal experiences (sought or offered and utilized; not sought or

utilized);4. learner–learner interaction (encouraged; not sought; encouraged and tutor

participation);5. learner “thinking aloud” (encouraged; not sought or encouraged);6. feedback on contributions (positive and encouraged; negative or dismissive);7. development of thinking skills/understanding (dominant; partial or incidental;

neglected), and8. learner contributions to tutorials (publicly valued; not valued; not sought).

3.2. Tele-tutorials

A common component of the instructional strategy package accompanying manydistance-learning units offered by the university is what is termed a tele-tutorial.These are distance mode tutorials conducted with students who are connected to theuniversity and each other via telephone link ups. Each tele-tutorial is conducted witha member of the academic staff responsible for the conduct of the unit. A distancemode unit might have from one to five such tele-tutorials per semester unit.

For this study, the Distance Education Centre of the University audio-recorded 17tele-tutorials, which varied in length from 31 to 54 min. The tutorials were conductedin the first semester of the 1996 academic year (in Australia, the academic year runsfrom February to November). Each of the tutorials in this study was conducted bythe unit team leader or by the lecturer who would normally teach the unit to eitheron-campus or distance students, or both. None of the units involved here had beendeliberately designed around or upon constructivist principles. From audio recordingsof these tele-tutorials, the frequency with which the eight constructivist featuresoccurred was tallied. To enable comparisons, the time spent on each of these activi-ties was standardized using percentage values.

For the 17 telephone tutorials examined, 87% of the time was spent in teacher-talk, 10% in student-talk (which included students asking questions), and 3% inteacher–student discussion. (It was noticed that there was no student–studentdiscussion.) The range of teacher-talk percentages was between 64 and 96, of stud-ent-talk between 2 and 24, and of teacher–student discussion between 0 and 10.

It might be expected that discussion between all members of a learning group,


which is a crucial feature of constructivist education, would be triggered by theteacher asking open-ended questions at appropriate times. One such question wasasked in one tutorial. In another tutorial 10 open-ended questions were put, and theaverage per tutorial was four. For most tutorials open-ended questions, though few,did exceed the number of closed questions put by the teachers, the overall ratiobeing 2:1.

Clearly these 17 telephone tutorials did not display any essential constructivistsocial learning features. One displayed the development of an embryonic constructiv-ist social context for learning, but even in that one the perpetual focus of all interac-tions was the teacher.

As to each of the key constructivist features:

1. The ethos/environment. Four of the tutorials did convey a student-centred ethos,but 11 of the 17 were pre-dominantly or totally tutoring or content-centred.

2. The nature of the subject matter. Only one of the 17 tutorials dealt with “realworld” situations to some extent. All others were theoretical in nature.

3. Utilization of learners’ experiences. In four of the tutorials the tutor referred tostudents’ personal experiences or students themselves made such references. In11 of the 17 tutorials such experience was neither sought nor utilized.

4. Learners’ interaction. There was no incidence of the tutors initiating, encouraging,or giving any evidence of even contemplating interaction amongst the students inany of the tutorials.

5. Learners “thinking aloud”. During some of the relatively rare segments of stud-ent-talk, the tutors in six tutorials did encourage them to pursue and enunciatetheir line of thinking. In 10 of the 17, however, such activity was neither soughtnor encouraged.

6. Tutor feedback on learner contributions. Despite the fact that tutors did not actto develop learner contributions of great substance or length, all of them in the17 tutorials were encouraging of student contributions when they were made andpublicly valued them.

7. Attention to thinking skills and understanding. In five tutorials there was someevidence of the tutors being concerned with the ways in which the students werethinking, but in the other 12 this aspect was completely neglected at least as faras the tutors’ overt behaviour was concerned.

On the whole the tele-tutorials displayed very few characteristics of constructivistpedagogy. Most of them comprise mainly one-way traffic with information beingdispensed by the tutors in the “traditional” banking view of teaching described byPaulo Freire (1970). In the warmth of delivery and in the many empatheticexpressions of the tutors, however, there is fuel for the suspicion that the tutorialsmight have been very much more constructivists in nature had the tutors knownwhat was possible, how to engender it, and how beneficial to the students it wouldhave been. Ignorance of constructivism is likely to be the main explanation of theinability or reluctance of tutors to conduct what were labelled as “tutorials” but were,in effect, largely monological mini-lectures.


3.3. Analysis of study materials

Each of the sets of study materials identified in the 1996 first semester units wasexamined for evidence of constructivist methodology. In most distance mode offer-ings of units at the university in question, students are provided with a package ofstudy materials that usually include various combinations of print-based and otherforms (audio-tapes, video-tapes, computer-based material, etc.) of administrative,instructional and assessment material. All 20 units were chosen because they hadplanned at least one telephone tutorial, which provides the opportunity for interactionat least for students taking advantage of them. The criteria for analysing the packagesin the respective units here were as follows:

1. subject matter relevant to the students’ personal experiences,2. authentic/real subject matter,3. ample and encouraged interaction between students and lecturer,4. interaction and collaboration encouraged among students,5. students identifying own learning goals and assessment procedures,6. student-centred ethos encouraging students to communicate their thinking, and7. subject matter presented as “best practice based on evidence to date”.

Each of these features was rated on a Likert-type scale which consisted of fourcategories: completely/strongly; in part/to some extent; minimally/incidentally; andnot at all/not overly.The most obvious feature of these data is the revelation of the lack of attention tointeraction, especially amongst the students themselves and, for most units, betweenlearner and teacher. A similar absence is that of encouraging students to “test-out”their understandings by communicating feedback on what they are thinking and seek-ing. More encouraging is the finding that much of the subject matter was not dog-matically asserting truth claims and that at least half the units presented authenticsituations for study. The relevance of the material to students’ personal experienceis difficult to score: while much of it is not within the ambit of their lives outsidetheir studies, one might aver that by the second and third years of study, it wasbecoming part of their degree-major “real-world”.On the whole the data indicate that constructivist features are lacking in the 20 unitssampled, and that these units do not display a commitment to constructivist prin-ciples. Specifically, the analyses of the study materials with respect to the abovecriterion were as follows:

The subject matter should prove to be relevant to students’ personal experiences.While the subject matter of some units is concerned with the phenomena andevents common to most intelligent adults of this society, it is invariably treatedesoterically in an academic manner right from the beginning. No unit begins withthe students’ experiences and develops the scholarly approach subsequently. Someassignments, but not the majority, invite the student to apply theory to personal


experience. Some units’ material should have become personally relevant to stu-dents as they identify with their majors in their second or subsequent years.

In more detail, the findings of the analysis of the study packages in the key areasidentified (supra.) as critical to constructivist pedagogy were as follows:

The subject matter is authentic/“real world” in nature. About half of the unitsexamined do use authentic case studies and examples, but some that could veryeasily, do not. Generally, the initial and major part of the treatment is theoreticalwith “real world” phenomena being used in a secondary manner subsequently ifat all.

There is ample opportunity for and encouragement of interaction between thestudent and the lecturer. Many units have just one mention in the IntroductoryBook of how to contact the lecturer, and some do offer a warm invitation to doso, including in one or two cases providing a home telephone number, but nounit mentions such contact again in the Study Book or in more than one placein the Introductory Book.

Interaction and collaboration between students is encouraged. In only two unitsis there any reference to students helping one another.Students may identify their own learning goals and negotiate assessment criteriaand forms. Three-quarters of the units examined have precise, specific, detailedobjectives and cut-and-dried marking criteria where they are mentioned at all. Asmall number of units allow a choice of assignments and allow students to proposetheir own. The most constructivist statement in this regard is in one unit: “Ourapproach to this unit is to encourage students to consider solutions, through rea-soned thought and readings, to problems with which they may have been con-fronted in their professional practice”.

The study materials convey an empathetic, positive, student-centred ethos encour-aging students to communicate their thinking/queries/problems for feedback. Thisitem should have been divided into two parts. Many of the units are written inan engaging empathetic way and do encourage personal thought, investigation,and reflection on the part of the student. Virtually all, however, are really teacheror “experts” centred and are objective, dispassionate, and professional in tone.Only in one unit does there appear to be a genuine invitation to students to com-municate with the team leader during their studies.

The subject matter and assessment items are presented as best practice based onexpert experience to date rather than as unquestionable truths. For most of theunits “correct” answers and methods were of paramount importance.

Many of the units, however, involved exploration of data/information, discussion,judgment, and assessment, and are based on a search for understanding. A variety


of references expose students to some differences of opinion among “experts” andsome assignments allow for personal perspectives. One unit says: “The availableevidence suggests that…” and in another unit there is constant exhortation to criticalreview and personal judgment. In an additional unit: “This unit … encourages stu-dents to critically examine the ways in which nurses currently respond … and todevelop personal frameworks for responding to challenges”.In summary, phase 1 of this study allowed the research team to identify a numberof key features on constructivist pedagogy agreed upon by a number of experts inthe area. The team was also able to conclude that very little evidence of the incorpor-ation of constructivist principles or strategies was apparent in the study packagesaccompanying the offering of a number of distance education mode units of study,despite the literature supporting major learning gains attributable to such strategiesand approaches. The results of this part of the study and the summary of the relevantliterature provided the basis for the pursuit of the second phase of the project.

4. Phase 2: methodology

The purpose of this part of the study was to further elaborate on the key featuresof constructivism in the learning environment, using the contents of phase 1 forquestionnaire development. Quantitative analysis enables the sampling of a largenumber of learning units in a relatively short time, and, in the current case, enablesthe generalization of findings beyond the boundaries of the sample used in phase 1of this study. This second, quantitative phase was also used to triangulate the evi-dence about the incorporation of constructivist principles in higher education gener-ated in phase 1. A further, though subsidiary, purpose of this phase was to developa questionnaire that could be used by other researchers in various educational set-tings. This questionnaire was used in the current study to quantitatively determinethe main clusters of constructivism, and consequently, to examine how these featuresare used in formal face-to-face-type and DE settings at a university level. In addition,the study was also aimed at examining how much consideration instructional design-ers are giving to these features when planning their external units for students.

4.1. Participants

Participants were 642 undergraduate students from one university in Australia ofwhom 36% were males and 64% female, with a mean age of 21.5 (SD=2.7) years.Their distribution with respect to faculties was as follows: Arts — 2%; Business —26%; Commerce — 9%; Education — 7%; Engineering and Surveying — 4%; andSciences — 50%. The students were enrolled in 36 units across all the faculties.

4.2. Questionnaire development

The electronic discussion in phase 1 of the study was blueprinted and relevantliterature published on constructivism in the educational and psychological domainswas summarized.


At this stage two instructional designers were asked to summarize the literatureand electronic discussion, listing key concepts and features of the constructivistapproach in the teaching–learning environment. One hundred and fifty statementswere outlined. These statements were then phrased into questionnaire items. Eachitem was given a Likert-type score ranging from “1 — not at all” to “5 — verymuch”. This questionnaire was used to identify quantitatively the concept of con-structivism as perceived by learners.

4.3. Procedure

Immediately following the development of the questionnaire, the researchersapproached lecturers from six faculties during the first and second semesters of the1997 university year. The questionnaire was explained to them and they were askedto let an assistant administer the questionnaire to their students during the first 30min of their class. They were asked not to attend the class during this period oftime. The students were instructed to fill out the demographic details and to thenread carefully and respond honestly to all the 150 items in relation to the unit theywere currently taking. They were told not to list their names on any other informationso that their responses would remain anonymous.

4.4. Statistical analysis

The 150 items were subjected to principal component analysis followed by Obli-min rotation with eigenvalue.1.00 as a criterion for determining the number offactors. Correlations were computed to examine the relations among the resultingfactors. Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) were computed for each factor toexamine content heterogeneity and possible items’ reduction. Three expert instruc-tional designers with strong experiential backgrounds in constructivism, and whowere not a part of the research team, were then given the items to review in orderto decide upon two matters: (a) a factor title which best described the content of allthe items within each factor; and (b) which of the similar items was phrased clearerand which did not share any common content with the other items. These two pro-cedures were aimed at reducing the length of the instrument for further use. Thus,an item was deleted from the questionnaire when (1) its loading on the factor waslower than 0.40, (2) its content was not shared with the other items, (3) scale internalconsistency increased if the item were deleted, and (4) its content was identical toother items but its phrasing was somewhat unclear.

The shorter version of the instrument was used to compare the mean of theresulting factors among the units in which more than 20 students attended andresponded to the questionnaire. The shorter version was also given to additionalstudents and their responses were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to verifythe resulting structure of factors and items. The responses of the instructional design-ers and the students were plotted followed by independentt-tests and calculation ofeffect sizes to examine possible differences between the two in the respective factors.


5. Phase 2: results

The 150 items subjected to factor analysis resulted in seven factors, whichaccounted together for 69.5% of the variance. The correlations among the factorsranged between20.31 and 0.37, indicating sufficient independence of each factor.Two reduction processes took place at this stage, one based on the internal consist-encies (alpha) of each scale, and the other on items content and clarity. Alpha valueswere calculated for each of the versions separately. The number of items in eachscale, and scale’s reliabilities are presented in Table 1.Table 2 presents the item loadings on each of the seven resulting factors. Four itemsdid not load on any of the seven resulting factors of the extended questionnaire. The146 remaining items resulted in 0.99 reliability, and each of the seven resultingfactors also showed very high internal consistency.Following the first item reduction procedure, the 81 items remaining resulted in0.99 reliability and above 0.84 reliability values for each factor separately. The thirdreduction procedure, based mainly on item clarity, resulted in 30 items and 0.86reliability for all of them. The internal consistency for the seven sub-scales remainwithin the 0.72–0.87 range. Also the loading magnitudes of items on factors indicatestrong factor structure. The correlations among the short version seven factors arepresented in Table 3 and the summary of the inter-item correlations in Table 4.The inter-correlations resulted in small to moderate correlations among the sevenfactors. This suggests that the factors are independent each from the other. The inter-item correlations were all moderate, which indicates that each item within its respect-ive factor contributes to its internal consistency and subsequently to its content rep-resentation. At this stage three experienced instructional designers from the universitywere asked to name seven factors in accordance with the respective items’ contents.Their final titles were as follows: (1) arguments, discussions, debates, (2) conceptual

Table 1Number of items and internal consistencies (a) of original and modified version of the questionnaires

First version Reduction 1 Final version

Factor No. of item a No. of item a No. of item a

1. Arguments, discussions, debates 23 0.93 11 0.91 5 0.822. Conceptual conflicts and 9 0.84 4 0.84 3 0.83dilemmas3. Sharing ideas with others 21 0.94 9 0.90 4 0.794. Materials and resources targeted 14 0.87 9 0.83 3 0.72toward solutions5. Motivation toward reflections 46 0.97 29 0.96 6 0.87and concept investigation6. Meeting students’ needs 21 0.94 13 0.91 5 0.777. Making meaning, real-life 12 0.89 6 0.84 4 0.77examplesTotal 146 0.99 81 0.97 30 0.86


Table 2Factor structure (Oblimin rotation) of the final 30-item version questionnaire

Factors and abbreviated items Factorloading

Factor 1. Arguments, discussions, debates1 The unit allowed for arguments, discussions and debates 0.662 The unit encouraged originality of ideas 0.683 The unit allowed for constant exchange of ideas between student and teacher 0.634 I learned to develop mind tools in this unit (e.g. critical thinking) 0.625 Multiple perspectives of situations were often presented in the unit 0.56

Factor 2. Conceptual conflicts and dilemmas6 The unit posed some dilemmas for me 0.757 The unit caused confusion among conceptual ideas 0.838 The unit caused conflicts for me among various concepts 0.69

Factor 3. Sharing ideas with others9 The unit allowed social interaction 0.7010 The unit comprised a variety of learning activities 0.6911 I was given sufficient opportunities to express myself 0.5912 I was given sufficient opportunities to share my own experiences with others 0.65

Factor 4. Materials and resources targeted toward solutions13 The unit taught me how to arrive at appropriate answers 0.5314 The unit resources effectively conveyed information to be learned 0.5215 The unit included relevant examples 0.63

Factor 5. Motivation toward reflections and concept invesigation16 The unit motivated me to think reflectively 0.5917 The unit encouraged me to examine several perspectives of an issue 0.7118 The ideas in the unit motivated me to learn 0.6919 The unit taught me to investigate concepts 0.6620 The unit enabled me to use knowledge acquired for abstract thinking 0.5921 The unit motivated me for further learning of related subjects 0.61

Factor 6. Meeting students’ needs22 The unit took into consideration my needs and concerns 0.6423 I felt pleased with what I learned in the unit 0.6124 The unit helped me to benefit from my learning difficulties 0.6425 The unit allowed for the negotiation of the instructional goals and objectives 0.5826 The unit helped me to pursue personal goals 0.63

Factor 7. Making meaning, real-life examples27 The learning environment encouraged me to think 0.6528 The unit focused more on making meaning of the learned concepts 0.5729 The unit addressed real-life events 0.5530 The unit was rich in examples 0.65


Table 3Correlations among the seven factors of the final shorter version of the questionnaire

Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Arguments, discussions, debates –2. Conceptual conflicts and dilemmas 20.07 –3. Sharing ideas with others 20.34 0.07 –4. Materials and resources targeted 0.18 20.13 20.24 –toward solutions5. Motivation toward reflections and 0.42 20.05 20.37 0.38 –concept investigation6. Meeting students’ needs 0.39 20.12 20.39 0.32 0.43 –7. Making meaning, real-life examples20.31 0.21 0.25 20.31 20.36 20.32

Table 4Summary statistics for the inter-item correlations for the shorter version of the questionnaire

Inter-item correlations

Factor Mean Minimum Maximum Range

1. Arguments, discussions, debates 0.48 0.41 0.57 0.162. Conceptual conflicts and dilemmas 0.61 0.50 0.72 0.223. Sharing ideas with others 0.49 0.39 0.62 0.234. Materials and resources targeted toward solutions 0.46 0.44 0.47 0.035. Motivation toward reflections and concept 0.53 0.45 0.65 0.21investigation6. Meeting students’ needs 0.46 0.35 0.55 0.197. Making meaning, real-life examples 0.46 0.42 0.53 0.11

conflicts and dilemmas, (3) sharing ideas with others, (4) materials and resourcestargeted toward solutions, (5) motivation toward reflections and concept investi-gation, (6) meeting students’ needs, and (7) making meaning, real-life examples.These seven features of constructivism in the learning environment were almostcongruent with those defined in phase 1 of this project using qualitative methodology.The next analysis pertained to how students perceived the seven resulting factors intheir learning experiences in class. Only 10 units with an enrolment of more than20 students each entered into the MANOVA procedure. Units with an enrolment ofless than 20 students were excluded from this analysis because of the possibility ofviolating the normal distribution assumption (i.e. “unit” was considered as a factor)The results indicated strong and significant unit effect across all seven factors,Hotellings T=0.94; p,0.001 and a univariateF-test for each of the seven factorsranged between 6.83 and 16.05, all significant atp,0.001 level. This indicates thatthe extent that these seven factors are experienced differ among various units. How-


ever, to illustrate the extent that each of the factors is experienced across all thestudied units, the means and SDs were calculated and are presented them in Fig. 1.

It is evident that making meaning, real-life examples and materials and resourcestargeted toward solutions are more present than the other four factors. Their meanrating indicates that these two factors are present between “somewhat” and “much”on the rating scale, while the other four factors on the average are “somewhat”present. It indicates that on the average, constructivist principles of instruction arenot incorporated to any significant extent in regular undergraduate classes. Thesefindings are not dissimilar to those from phase 1.

The short version of the questionnaire (see Appendix A and Table 6) was adminis-tered to an additional 271 students enrolled in eight face-to-face classes at the univer-sity. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify whether the sevenfactors resulting from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) could be validated. We

Fig. 1. Ratings of constructivist instructional components in formal undergraduate university courses byinstructional designers (how much of each of the components is taken care of) and students (how muchof each of the components was present).


allowed the seven factors to be correlated and used three indicators of fit:c2/df, theBentler-Bonette normal index (BBN), and the comparative fit index (CFI). Sufficientfit values are smaller than 2.0 for the first, and.0.90 for the BBN and CFI. Thefit values of our data to the seven-factor solution were somewhat lower (c2/df=3.93,BBN=0.85, and CFI=0.87). Correlations among the seven factors indicated that sixsub-scales are very highly correlated, except for the second factor, “conceptual con-flicts and dilemmas” (see Table 5). These correlations indicate that six of the sevenresulting factors share one underlying dimension, while “conceptual conflicts anddilemmas” is a unique dimension, which we believe, more than others, representsthe constructivist approach, though the other features are also of importance.

To compare the intentions of teachers to the students’ perception on the sevensub-scales, 51 university lecturers who design and teach undergraduate courses(mathematics, education, psychology, nursing, biology, and physics) at the universitywere asked to respond to the 30 items, short version questionnaire, which representedthe seven constructivist dimensions (see Appendix B and Table 7). Their responseswere averaged and compared to the respective averaged responses of 642 students.The results are shown in Fig. 1.

The independentt-tests performed on the seven dimensions between the instruc-tional designer ratings and the students’ perceptions were all significant (p,0.01)and can be attributed also to the large sample of students. To illustrate these differ-ences we computed the standardized differences (i.e. effect sizes; ES) between thetwo samples using ES=(mi2mj )/Sp, wheremi andmj are the respective means of theinstruction designers and students, and Sp is the pooled standard deviation of bothsamples. The ES were also corrected (CES) for the sample size. The major differ-ences between the teaching staff and the students were obtained on two dimensions:“sharing ideas with others” (no. 4) and “making meaning, real-life examples” (no.7). The differences in these two dimensions were 0.97 and 1.03 of a standard devi-ation. This indicates that instructional designers believe that they design their unitsin a manner that these two dimensions are “much” implemented. However, studentsonly “somewhat” experience them in class. Very similar differences were alsoobtained for the dimension “motivation toward reflections and concept investigation”(no. 5; CES=0.73). Smaller differences but in a similar direction were also recorded

Table 5Correlations among the seven factors in the CFA

Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Arguments, discussions, debates2. Conceptual conflicts and dilemmas 20.043. Sharing ideas with others 0.8220.114. Materials and resources targeted toward solutions 0.7020.25 0.625. Motivation toward reflections and concept 0.8120.20 0.72 0.90investigation6. Meeting students’ needs 0.7920.21 0.78 0.83 0.977. Making meaning, real-life examples 0.7720.24 0.77 0.91 0.87 0.83


for “materials and resources targeted toward solutions” (no. 6; CES=0.73), “concep-tual conflicts and dilemmas” (no. 1; CES=0.33), and “arguments, discussing, debates”(no. 3; CES=0.30). In contrast, students rated higher “meeting students needs” (no.2) than instructional designers (CES=20.34), but both rated this dimension verylow (“little”).

6. Discussion

The two-phase study conducted here was aimed at examining the extent of con-structivist practices in both conventional campus-based as well as distance educationsettings. This study was carried out in two phases in a dual mode institution, i.e.one that offers its teaching programs in both the aforementioned modes. This studywas strongly influenced by the contemporary shift in teaching and learning from alargely behaviourist approach into a constructivist one (Jonassen, 1991). One of theforemost assumptions of this study was that given this shift, there ought to be anincreasing presence of constructivist practices in both these educational settings. Toreliably examine these assumptions, the attributes that sets constructivism apart fromother pedagogic paradigms had to be identified. This was done in the first phase ofthe study. These attributes were validated and then used to search for their presencein the two learning and teaching contexts identified.

The results, which pertain to the ODL environment (phase 1), are based on theanalysis of 17 telephone-mediated tutorials. They indicate that the majority of timein these tutorials was devoted to teacher talk (87%). Only 3% of the time was devotedto teacher–student interaction and discussion. Student-to-student discussions werealmost non-existent. The “social learning” attribute, a feature so essential in construc-tivism was not present in the ODL environment. In addition, other critical attributesof constructivism, namely focusing the instruction on student needs, dealing with“real world” problems, sharing personal experiences, students interaction, “thinkingaloud”, attention to “thinking skills” were also insufficiently met in this teaching andlearning environment.

Similarly to ODL environments the findings from the conventional campus-basedenvironment indicate that the intentions of instructional designers favouring con-structivist principles are not carried into discernible practice. Instructional designersagreed moreover, that they donot plan their units to meet their students’ needs.Given this it is hardly surprising to note that students’ needs were also not met inODL tutorials. However, “sharing ideas with others” and “making meaning and useof real life examples” were present in formal classes to some extent, even thoughthe instructional designers did not aim to focus on them very much. Creating concep-tual conflicts and dilemmas and encouraging arguments, discussions, and debateswere also not experienced by the students to any great degree.

There is a possibility that some results from parts of this study, though, need tobe viewed with some caution. Given the minuscule amount of attention devoted toexplication of meta-cognitive and meta-epistemological dimensions of the adultlearning process in most university courses, it is highly likely that there might well


be some conceptual and terminological differences between the various participantgroups. In particular, there can be little certainly that the student group, as a whole,would have interpreted some items in the survey instruments in a manner consistentwith meanings associated with those terms by academics, and especially those froman instructional design or formal disciplinary background in education studies. Thislikely difference needs to be borne in mind in interpreting some of the data reportedon here, but nevertheless fails to diminish the main thrust of the arguments promoted.

In the conventional on-campus environment the materials used were only rarelyaimed at generating solutions to problems. In an ODL environment the materials donot encourage students to recall and share their experiences with one another. In thelatter case the emphasis is more on the theories rather than their implementation andno interaction with others is encouraged. In most of the cases in the ODL materials,while the instructional goals are stated clearly, there is no place for “negotiation ofpersonal learning goals”. Assessment of student learning is usually “fixed”, someunits allow for “searching and understanding” and “difference of opinions”.

The two phases of the study, even though they used different methodologies, pro-duced very similar outcomes in the operational definitions of constructivism and itspresence in university courses. In ODL environments, learners are not typically inclose physical proximity to each other and their teacher, they are taught to workmore independently but share their thoughts and dilemmas with others. Also thematerials they get should encourage them to develop a “higher mental process” sothat they may share it later during the tutorials (Wagner & McCombs, 1995). Inregular classes such teaching–learning processes ought to be naturally encouraged.The results of this study do not support their existence in either of this university’steaching and learning modes.

The observation of minimal existence of constructivist principles in both conven-tional campus-based and distance education practices may stem from a lack of knowl-edge of these principles by the instructional designers and educators generally. Itmay also stem from the fact that these principles are hard to implement. It is clearalso that no concerted effort has been made to ensure the integration of these desir-able practices in higher education and in the context that are germane to the univer-sity’s business. Clearly the idea of setting goals in a flexible manner and havingstudents negotiate these for themselves is not acceptable to instructional designers,especially those who hold deterministic beliefs and set goals about learning.

For various reasons, integrating constructivist principles into teaching both con-ventional campus-based and distance education students seems to be a harder taskthan that of establishing and theorizing these principles. While there is agreementon the desirability of a shift from conventional models of learning to constructivistapproaches, there is a substantial shortfall in their incorporation into concrete peda-gogical practice generally. If instructional designers believe that constructivist prac-tices are desirable, then a concerted effort has to be made by them and the institutionto ensure that desire and practice coincide to a much greater extent that would seemto be currently the case.

The study reported here serves as a critical and much needed preliminary bench-mark from where we can now trace our progress. It also provides us with a method-


ology for investigating the presence and/or absence of constructivist practices andprinciples in teaching and learning. In these two ways this study contributed to thefield by not only enumerating the attributes of novel perspectives of learning, butalso postulating about ascertaining its presence and or absence thereof. It remainsnow for instructional designers and educators to address the gap that this study hassystematically revealed.

References

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Candy, P. C. (1991).Self direction for long life learning.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Driver, R. (1988). Theory into practice II: a constructivist approach to curriculum development. In P. J.

Fensham,Development and dilemmas in science education(pp. 165–188). London: The Falmer Press.Freire, P. (1970).Pedagogy of the oppressed.New York: Continuum.Von Glaserfeld, E. (1987). Learning as constructive activity. In E. Von Glaserfeld,The construction of

knowledge: contributions to conceptual semantics(pp. 212–214). California: Intersystems Publication.Jonassen, D. H. (1991). Objectivism versus constructivism: do we need a new philosophical paradigm?

Educational Technology Research and Development, 39, 5–14.Lai-Chong, L., & Wong, K. (1995). Implications and problems of constructivism for instructional design.

Education Journal (Hong Kong), 23, 73–104 (cited inEducational Administration Abstracts, 32(3),301, July 97).

Lunenberg, F. C. (1998). Constructivism and technology: instructional designs for successful educationreform. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 25, 75–82.

O’Donnell, A. M. (1997). Constructivism by design and in practice: a review.Issues in Education, 3,285–294.

Spigner-Littles, D. A., & Chalon, E. (1999). Constructivism: a paradigm for older learners.EducationalGerontology, 25, 203–210.

Steffe, L., & Gale, J. (1995).Alternative epistemologies in education. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design.Learning and

Instruction, 4, 295–312.Taylor, P. C. S. (1990).The influence of teacher beliefs on constructivist teaching practices. Paper

presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, USA.Tennyson, R. D. (1992). An educational learning theory for instructional design.Educational Technology,

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Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research on Science Teaching, Lake Geneva, WI,USA.

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