Educational Constructivism: History
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Subjects: Education & Educational Research
Contributor:
Keith S. Taber

A perspective on learning and teaching that considers knowledge must be constructed by the individual learner using available interpretive resources, and where learners are likely to misconstrue instruction without well-designed teaching that is informed by knowledge of learners’ ideas.

  • constructivism
  • constructionism
  • teaching
  • learning
  • alternative conceptions
  • misconceptions
  • pedagogy
  • interpreting texts
  • knowledge
  • curriculum
The term ‘constructivism’ is used with some variation in meaning in a range of fields, including philosophy and the scholarship of research methods in the humanities and social sciences [1][2]. While the different uses are not unrelated, the present article is concerned with the notion of constructivism as understood in the field of education, in relation to the study of learners’ developing thinking, and the labelling of some approaches to teaching as ‘constructivist’. This educational constructivism is sometimes known by alternative terms, such as pedagogic constructivism, or psychological or cognitive constructivism. The related term, constructionism, is also used in different ways but, as explained below, ‘social constructionism’ usually refers to a somewhat distinct set of ideas.
These various versions of constructivism all concern themselves with, and problematise, how people come to knowledge, and the philosophical (metaphysical) accounts are inconsistent with any naive realism about natural science (that is that scientific accounts can be known to strongly reflect an actual independent, objective reality). So-called ‘radical constructivism’, which takes an epistemological stance that we can never know that our conceptions of the world do truly reflect an objective reality [3], has been influential in education. However, as explained below, educational constructivism is primarily concerned with learning about knowledge set out in some form of curriculum, but without regard to the absolute status of that knowledge (e.g., objective truth or culturally contingent human construction). As one commentator noted, this makes the claims of metaphysical constructivism ‘almost entirely irrelevant’ to education [4].
The terms constructivism and constructivist are commonly used in discourse around teaching and learning, but have been especially common—sometimes perhaps dominant—in relation to science and mathematics education [5][6][7]. Constructivist ideas are also increasingly influential across the curriculum and in all phases of education [8][9][10][11]. There is also some diversity in how ‘constructivism’ has been evaluated. While constructivism has become almost a by-word for modern teaching methods in many countries and has informed formal documentation in national teaching policies [12][13][14][15][16], it has also been seen by some commentators, especially in the United States [17], as indicating an approach to teaching that is motivated ideologically and that falls short of other educational approaches (and, in particular, is inferior to what is labelled as ‘direct instruction’).
Given that, similar to most social concepts, constructivism is to some degree differently understood by different scholars [18], it is important to acknowledge at the outset that this entry takes a position. That position is that educational constructivism, in the sense in which the term is set out here, refers to a perspective on teaching and learning that is highly influential in both research and the practice of teaching, and that is supported by key findings from basic research into human learning. It has also been demonstrated to be effective in myriad studies on teaching and learning in fields such as science education, although it should be acknowledged that most of these studies suffer from severe limitations, including the challenges of attempting experimental research in the context of classrooms, where control of variables is seldom perfect [19].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/encyclopedia4040100

References

  1. Phillips, D.C. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism. Educ. Res. 1995, 24, 5–12.
  2. Guba, E.G.; Lincoln, Y.S. Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research; Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S., Eds.; Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2005; pp. 191–215.
  3. Glasersfeld, E.V. Cognition, construction of knowledge, and teaching. Synthese 1989, 80, 121–140.
  4. Grandy, R.E. Constructivisms and objectivity: Disentangling metaphysics from pedagogy. In Constructivism in Science Education: A Philosophical Examination; Matthews, M.R., Ed.; Kluwer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1998; pp. 113–123.
  5. Solomon, J. The changing perspectives of constructivism: Science wars and children’s creativity. In Constructivism in Education: Opinions and Second Opinions on Controversial Issues; Phillips, D.C., Ed.; National Society for the Study of Education: Chicago, IL, USA, 2000; pp. 283–307.
  6. Ernest, P. (Ed.) Constructing Mathematical Knowledge: Epistemology and Mathematics Education; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2003.
  7. Thompson, P.W. Constructivism in mathematics education. In Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2020; pp. 127–134.
  8. Tomljenović, Z.; Tatalović, S. Constructivism in visual arts classes. Cent. Educ. Policy Stud. J. 2020, 10, 13–32.
  9. Rillo, A.G.; Martínez-Carrillo, B.E.; Castillo-Cardiel, J.A.; Rementería-Salinas, J.M. Constructivism: An interpretation from medical education. IOSR J. Res. Method Educ. 2020, 10, 13.
  10. Chuang, S. The applications of constructivist learning theory and social learning theory on adult continuous development. Perform. Improv. 2021, 60, 6–14.
  11. Akpomi, M.E.; Kayii, N.E. Constructivist approaches: A budding paradigm for teaching and learning entrepreneurship education. Int. J. Educ. Teach. Soc. Sci. 2022, 2, 31–44.
  12. Bell, B.; Jones, A.; Car, M. The development of the recent National New Zealand Science Curriculum. Stud. Sci. Educ. 1995, 26, 73–105.
  13. Vavrus, F. The cultural politics of constructivist pedagogies: Teacher education reform in the United Republic of Tanzania. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 2009, 29, 303–311.
  14. Taber, K.S. Paying lip-service to research?: The adoption of a constructivist perspective to inform science teaching in the English curriculum context. Curric. J. 2010, 21, 25–45.
  15. Blaik-Hourani, R. Constructivism and revitalizing social studies. Hist. Teach. 2011, 44, 227–249.
  16. Law, E.H.-F. In Search of a Quality Curriculum in Hong Kong. In International Handbook of Curriculum Research; Pinar, W.F., Ed.; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2013; pp. 271–283.
  17. Kirschner, P.A.; Sweller, J.; Clark, R.E. Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educ. Psychol. 2006, 41, 75–86.
  18. Bodner, G.M.; Klobuchar, M.; Geelan, D. The Many Forms of Constructivism. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 1107.
  19. Taber, K.S. Experimental research into teaching innovations: Responding to methodological and ethical challenges. Stud. Sci. Educ. 2019, 55, 69–119.
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