Paradigms revisited: a quantitative investigation into a model to integrate objectivism and constructivism in instructional design

Abstract

While learning interventions were traditionally classified as either objectivist or constructivist there has been an increasing tendency for practitioners to use elements of both paradigms in a consolidated fashion. This has meant a re-think of the two perspectives as diametrically opposite. A four-quadrant model, first proposed in this journal was tested to see to what extent instructional design practitioners were, in fact, integrating elements of both paradigms into a single learning event. After a pilot and a main study involving 214 designers it was found that all their courses did, in fact present somewhere in the four quadrants of the matrix, rather than to fall on a supposed straight line. The results of this study show that the matrix may be useful in describing the choices made by instructional designers when they select elements of instructional design.