A central argument of this chapter is that there is a common basis for the failure of many instructional systems. The claim is that these deficiencies in the outcomes of learning are strongly influenced by underlying biases and assumptions in the design of instruction that represent the instructional domain and its associated performance demands in an unrealistically simplified and well-structured manner. We offer a constructivist theory of learning and instruction that emphasizes the real-world complexity and ill-structuredness of many knowledge domains. Any effective approach to instruction must simultaneously consider several highly intertwined topics, such as: the constructive nature of understanding; the complex and ill-structured features of many, if not most, knowledge domains; patterns of learning failure; and a theory of learning that addresses known patterns of learning failure.

Extract: The following brief set of remarks is a response to the thoughtful discussions by Merrill (1991) and Dick (1991) of our paper that appeared in the special issue of Educational Technology on the topic of constructivism (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, and Coulson 1991). Given the generally positive tenor of their comments about our paper, we will obviously not find much to disagree with. Instead, we will clarify and amplify a few issues raised in and by our paper about the nature of our theory and the instructional approach derived from it. (All we will be able to do here is state general positions; readers seeking detailed explication should see our papers, especially: Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, and Anderson, 1988; Spiro, Feltovich, Coulson, and Anderson, 1989; Spiro and Jehng, 1990; Spiro, Vispoel, Schmitz, Samarapungavan, and Boerger, 1987.)