Publication 5357

Extract: The May 1991 issue of Educational Technology focusing on constructivism also contained a spirited disagreement between Merrill (1991), speaking for the instructional systems design (ISD) community, and the constructivists. Interestingly enough, the controversy does not appear to be between Merrill and the papers he claimed to be commenting on, but rather between his views and those in a book chapter by Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy, and Perry (1991). Time and time again Merrill references that chapter for his sharpest disagreement, rather than any of the articles he was discussing. Scientific controversy is probably as motivating an event as any of the alternatives proposed by the constructivists, or the Jasper discs discussed by the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt University (1991). I would guess that participants in these controversies are even more aroused than readers, so I am grateful to the editors for pulling me in from the sidelines to give an eclectic’s comments on the issues raised by the constructivist-ISD controversy.