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1. Constructivism views knowledge as constructed by learners based on their experiences rather than discovered from an objective external reality.
2. Researchers play an active role in determining what structures and theories are adopted rather than being detached observers. Knowledge is invented through social processes rather than discovered.
3. Constructivism posits that concepts and theories are viable if they are useful within their intended context rather than claiming to represent an absolute truth. Research aims to facilitate deeper understanding rather than just examine surface features.
1. Constructivism views knowledge as constructed by learners based on their experiences rather than discovered from an objective external reality.
2. Researchers play an active role in determining what structures and theories are adopted rather than being detached observers. Knowledge is invented through social processes rather than discovered.
3. Constructivism posits that concepts and theories are viable if they are useful within their intended context rather than claiming to represent an absolute truth. Research aims to facilitate deeper understanding rather than just examine surface features.
1. Constructivism views knowledge as constructed by learners based on their experiences rather than discovered from an objective external reality.
2. Researchers play an active role in determining what structures and theories are adopted rather than being detached observers. Knowledge is invented through social processes rather than discovered.
3. Constructivism posits that concepts and theories are viable if they are useful within their intended context rather than claiming to represent an absolute truth. Research aims to facilitate deeper understanding rather than just examine surface features.
To the constructivist, concepts, models, theories and
so on are viable if they prove adequate within the
context they were created.' In any qualitative research, the aim is to "engage in research that probes for deeper understanding rather than examining surface features and constructivism may facilitate toward that aim.
Researches as craftsmen, as toolmakers (Spivey) who are part of a network that creates knowledge and ultimately guides practice They do not merely observe organizational structures and report their findings. They also play a role in the process determining which structures are more or less likely to be adopted. They are part of a community of practice, which institutionally generates knowledge about strategy through a series of rule-based conversations. By defining the shared assumptions of these conversations, communities, and institutions, we can have a more fine-grained understanding of the theories and stories in our field. Knowledge is invented, not discovered.
HOOVER 1. Rather, learners come to learning situations with knowledge gained from previous experience, and that prior knowledge influences what new or modified knowledge they will construct from new learning experiences. 2. Learners confront their understanding in light of what they encounter in the new learning situation. If what learners encounter is inconsistent with their current understanding, their understanding can change to accommodate new experience. Learners remain active throughout this process: they apply current understandings, note relevant elements in new learning experiences, judge the consistency of prior and emerging knowledge, and based on that judgment, they can modify knowledge. 3. Coming to know is an adaptive process that organizes one's experiential world; it does not discover an independent, pre-existing world outside the mind of the knower (Matthews, 1992).
HIPPS 1. The constructivist notion, that reality is changing whether the observer wishes it or not (Hipps, 1993), is an indication of multiple or possibly diverse constructions of reality. Constructivism values multiple realities that people have in their minds.
While realists conceive of the research process as excavation, where the terrain of phenomena is mined for valuable nuggets of naturally occurring insight, constructivists view the process more as an act of sculpting, where the imagination (or the theory-base) of the artist interacts with the medium of phenomena to create a model of reality which we call knowledge. The constructivist view is therefore premised on the belief that a researcher always approaches a problem with a preconceived notion (a default theory) about the nature of the problem, and by implication, a possible solution for it (Fosnot, 1996). Constructivists believe that as long as researchers are transparent about their a priori theoretical position, the process of research is not impeded.
2. Constructivists have pre-conceived notions (biases) that are considered the building blocks of their findings 3. This contention by constructivists effectively negates the issue of whether theory drives practice or vice versa. As Butts and Brown (1989) theorize, there exists a phase of pretheoretical praxis that leads to the formalization of theory, and ultimately guides future praxis.
2 What is Constructivism? the view that all knowledge is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context (Crotty) Examines the relationship to reality by dealing with constructive processes in approaching it (Flick)
3 What is Constructivism? Constructivists challenge the notion that research is conducted by impartial, detached, value-neutral subjects, who seek to uncover clearly discernable objects or phenomena (Mir & Watson) Researches as craftsmen, as toolmakers (Spivey) Researches as actors rather than mere information processors or reactors (Mir & Watson)
4 Constructed knowledge Learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning (Hoover) Learners construct new understandings using what they already know. There is no tabula rasa on which new knowledge is etched. Learning is active rather than passive. Reality is changing whether the observer wishes it or not (Hipps)
5 Core assumptions 1. Knowledge is theory-driven. Sculpting not excavation Opposes a 'nomothetic' approach to methodology, which assumes that researchers are essentially discoverers of 'natural' phenomena, and that adherence to systematic protocol and technique will eliminate all biases from the research process
6 Core assumptions 2. The separation of the researcher and the phenomena under investigation is not feasible. Philosophical positions held by researchers determine their findings 3. The separation of theory and practice is equally unfeasible. Practice exists both before and after theory
7 Core assumptions 4. Researchers are never objective or value-neutral. Theory is discursive and power-laden 5. Research occurs within a 'community' of scholars where mutually held assumptions are deployed to create 'conversations. 6. Constructivism constitutes a methodology.
4. They suggest that theories are transmitted across space and time through discursive practices. Institutions are the sites where discourses produce communities of agreement (Von Glaserfield, 1995). Taking this issue a step further, some constructivists suggest that the institutional process is hegemonically deployed to create theories that suit sectional interests (Burchell, Gordon, and Miller, 1991). To such constructivists, theories are little more than reflections of the dominant power interests of their time. 5. Latour and Woolgar demonstrate that 'the construction of scientific facts, in particular, is a process of generating texts whose fate depends on their subsequent interpretation. 6. Constructivism has been conceptualized as a methodology, which is distinct from a method. A method is a tool or a technique that is used in the process of inquiry. In contrast, a methodology may be regarded as an 'intricate set of ontological and epistemological assumptions that a researcher brings to his or her work' (Prasad, 1997: 2). The distinction between methodology and method is not a trivial one. As Machlup (1978) suggests, methodology represents the doctrine of systematic forms of thought, and in order to be clear researchers need to be explicit about their choice of methodology. Thus, a researcher who is anchored in constructivist methodology may employ a variety of methods including statistical analysis (e.g., Fligstein, 1991) just as a researcher employing a realist methodology may use qualitative research (e.g., Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988)
Constructivism is not a unified programme, but it is developing in parallel fashion in a number of disciplines: psychology, sociology, philosophy, neurobiology, psychiatry and information science.
1. The individual forms differ according to the degree of structuring and idealization, and this depends on their functions more concrete as the basis of everyday action or more abstract as a model in the construction of scientific theories. Schutz enumerates different processes which have in common that the formation of knowledge of the world is not to be understood as the simple portrayal of given facts, but that the contents are constructed in a process of active production.
2. Viable it should fit into the experiential world of the one who knows
3. Social artifacts products of historically and culturally situated interchanges among people.
Social scientific knowledge is developed on the basis of pre-existing everyday knowledge and socially constructed through this developmental process. The main idea is the distinction that Schutz makes between constructs of the first and second degree: the constructs of the constructs made by the actors on the social scene. Accordingly, Schutz holds that the exploration of the general principles according to which man in daily life organizes his experiences, and especially those of the social world, is the first task of the social sciences. For Schutz, everyday knowledge and cognition become the basis on which the social scientist develops a more strongly formalized and generalized version of the world. 8 Different levels of construction 1. Cognition, perception of the world and knowledge about it are seen as constructs. (Piaget) Radical constructivism - maintains that the operations by means of which we assemble our experiential world can be explored, and that an awareness of this operating can help us do it differently and, perhaps, better (Glaserfeld) 2. Social constructivism inquires after the social conventionalizations, perception and knowledge in everyday life (Schutz) 3. Constructivist sociology of science seeks to establish how social, historical, local, pragmatic and other factors influence scientific discovery in such a way that scientific facts may be regarded as social constructs (Latoor & Woulgar)
9 Construction of knowledge 1. All our knowledge of the world, in common-sense as well as in scientific thinking, involves constructs specific to the relevant level of thought organization. Every form of knowledge is constructed by selection and structuring. Knowledge are constructed in a process of active production.
10 Construction of knowledge 2. Radical constructivism (Glaserfeld) Constructivism leads to a modified concept of cognition/knowledge. Knowledge is related to the way in which we organize our experiential world. It would be unreasonable to confirm the existence of something that can not be perceived. Human knowledge is a human construct Abandons the claim that cognition is true in the sense that it reflects objective reality. Instead it only requires that knowledge must be viable
11 Construction of knowledge 3. Social constructivism (Gergen) The terms and forms by which we achieve understanding of the world are social artifacts. Knowledge is constructed in processes of social interchange and is based on the role of language in such relationships The degree to which a given account of the world or self is sustained across time is not dependent on the objective validity of the account but on mutability of social processes.
12 Social scientific knowledge Are social constructs. The thought objects constructed by social scientists refer to, and are founded upon, thought objects constructed by the common-sense thought of man living in his everyday life among his fellow men (Schutz) Constructs of the second degree Social scientific research, on the basis of pre-existing everyday constructs, constructs another version of the world (multiple realities)
Examples: literary texts, theater plays Current interest also focuses on this concept outside literature and theatre. The debate thematizes mimesis as a general principle that can be used to demonstrate understanding of the world and texts: the individual assimilates himself to the world via mimetic processes. Mimesis makes it possible for individuals to step out of themselves, to draw the outer world into their inner worlds, and to lend expression to their interiority. It produces an otherwise unattainable proximity to objects and is thus a necessary condition of understanding. This means that social science has already contributed to determining and constructing the world it is investigating by means of its results so long as these, as individual results, can attract to themselves the attention of a broader public. In this way, its interpretations and modes of understanding again feed back into the modes of everyday experience.
Mimesis1 pre-understanding of what human action is, of its semantics, its symbolism, its temporality. From this pre-understanding, which is common to poets and their readers, arises fiction, and with fiction comes the second form of mimesis which is textual and literary. Mimesis2 texts, stories Mimesis3 marks the intersection of the world of text and the world of hearer or reader. Mimesis3 concerns the integration of the imaginative or fictive perspective offered at the level of mimesis2 into actual, lived experience. Not only are our life stories written, they must be read, and when they are read they are taken as ones own and integrated into ones identity and self-understanding. As time passes, our circumstances give rise to new experiences and new opportunities for reflection. We can redescribe our past experiences, bringing to light unrealized connections between agents, actors, circumstances, motives or objects, by drawing connections between the events retold and events that have occurred since, or by bringing to light untold details of past events. Of course, narrative need not have a happy ending. EXAMPLE: Research: M1: Biases, M2: Data, M3: Significant of results, application, effect to your lived experiences
Biographical narration of ones own life is not a portrayal of factual sequences. It becomes a mimetic representation of experiences that are constructed more generally in ones knowledge and more specifically for this purpose in the interview in the form of a narrative. On the other hand, the narrative provides a general framework within which experiences are ordered, represented, evaluated and so on in short, within which they are experienced.
Constructivist assumptions may be used as a starting point for the debate on the question of justifying the validity of qualitative research in particular because the validity of knowledge and its determination are a major problem for radical constructivism which has to be dealt under the keyword of viability of knowledge, models, theories or discoveries
13 Scientific knowledge as text Social scientific analyses are increasingly using the medium of text for their constructs. Social scientific constructs, therefore often become textual constructs, linked in part to the idea that everyday constructs are textual constructs.
14Mimesis Concerned with the representation of worlds natural worlds in symbolic worlds (Aristotle) Mimesis can therefore be used in a comprehensive way to mean representation (Reck) The individual assimilates himself to the world via mimetic processes. Interpretations and modes of understanding again feed back into modes of everyday experience.
15 Mimesis as a process Mimesis 1 preconfiguration of the field of action Mimesis 2 configuration of the field of action Mimesis 3 reconfiguration of the field of action Example: The act of reading the unity of the travel from mimesis 1 to mimesis 3 by way of mimesis 2
16 Constructivism and qualitative research Mimetic processes can be found in Processing of experiences in everyday practice Production of texts for research purposes Interviews, biographies, narratives Mimetic processes create versions of the world which can then be understood and interpreted through qualitative research.
17 Constructivism and qualitative research For qualitative research, constructivist assumptions become relevant for the understanding of collected data for example, biographies as constructs. Constructivist assumptions also become relevant for the critical analysis of procedure and methodological requirements Constructivist assumptions may be used as a starting point for the debate on the question of justifying the validity of qualitative research