In my opinion, Mike Spector's recent posting [14 Jul 95] warrants no flames or blasts, but it does deserve a few "constructive" (I couldn't resist, Mike) comments. First, I find it interesting, Mike, that you point toward Joe Henderson's powerful HIV/AIDS multimedia learning environment as an example of a interactive program that avoids the "constructivist/objectivist" debate. That may be true. I have spent more than four hours with that program, and it is one I'll never forget. Whether it "instructed" me or enabled me to "construct" new knowledge is irrelevant. It moved me like few learning experiences ever have.
What may surprise you, Mike, is that Joe Henderson would be the last person to claim that he has used ISD to develop any of his award-winning multimedia programs. I have worked on and off with Joe for almost a decade now, and I think I know his work well. (As a member of the steering committee for ED-MEDIA '95, I recommended him as one of this year's keynote speakers. At the last minute, personal circumstances prohibited me from attending the ED-MEDIA conference in Graz, Austria, and I am astonished to learn that anyone walked out of Joe's keynote presentation.) In any case, I have seen Joe quite bemused, but ever patient, whenever a presentation or workshop attendee steeped in ISD asks him what his objectives were when he designed his program or how he conducted his "task analysis." I think that with much justification Joe views himself as an artist/novelist/film-maker rather than as an "instructional designer." I do know that neither his M.D. nor his Ph.D. degrees included any courses in ISD.
This relates to one of the curious things about ISD. While I agree with you, Walt Dick, and other apologists for ISD that it does not prevent practitioners from being creative, it seems to me that very few of the products of ISD are very original. It also appears that many of the most novel and powerful learning environments coming out of places like Vanderbilt's Cognition and Technology Group, M.I.T.'s Media Lab, and Berkeley's Center for Educational Technology appear to have been developed without the application of any identifiable ISD model.
And it is not just cognitive psychologists, wild-eyed constructivists, or academic "imagineers" who are creating break-the-mold learning environments without following the dictates of ISD. Consider John M. Carroll, one of the foremost research scientists at IBM's Watson Research Center. His 1990 book, The Nurnberg Funnel: Designing Minimalist Instruction for Practical Computer Skill, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) exposes fundamental flaws in the standard systems approach to instruction (a la Gagné). Here is a brief quote:
"The mechanism and the self-asserted generality of the systems approach is attractive in a perverse way to educators and instructional designers, who characteristically worry about being too intuitive and not scientific enough. The plodding discipline of decomposing objectives and grinding out lesson sequences seems like 'hard' science and engineering practice. Unfortunately, the systems approach is as thin as it is mechanical and general. It is related only superficially to any serious understanding of human learning (it draws most heavily and directly on stimulus-response models of animal conditioning; Skinner 1954, 1958). It produces predictable training design outcomes but at best only mediocre success." (p. 3)
A careful reading of the ISD literature shows what a closed circle this group has become, and it seems that its main proponents are increasingly circling the wagons. Besides the frequent defenses of ISD found in the literature, there are numerous conferences, books, special issues, etc., devoted to the topic, but little evidence of its effectiveness is ever presented. It seems to be the same people over and over again writing these papers, hosting these conferences, etc. (I won't name names, but some of them seem to be in competition to see how often they can cite their closest associates and/or themselves.)
The bottom line, Mike, is that I disagree with you that "the so-called debate about constructivism/objectivism" is "indicative of childish and shallow attitudes." After all, many bright people (again, I won't name names) are contributing to that debate. You and Rod are hardly alone! While I don't want to condemn ISD, I think there is much to be said for continuing this debate as long as schools, universities, and training centers continue to be afflicted with impoverished pedagogy and misguided applications of instructional technology, much of it produced by "instructional designers." Constructivist pedagogy and open learning environments are certainly not the answer to all of the challenges we face in education and training, but we have hardly tapped their potential. Instead of abandoning this and related debates, let's strive to base them upon research evidence and theory. There is growing evidence that learners develop critical thinking skills as authors, designers, and constructors of knowledge and learn more in the process than they do as the recipients of knowledge prepackaged in the educational communications resulting from ISD (Jonassen & Reeves, in press). Where is the evidence for the effectiveness (especially cost-effectiveness) of ISD?
Carroll, J.M. (1990). The Nurnberg funnel: Designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Jonassen, D.H., & Reeves, T.C. (in press). Learning with technology: Using computers as cognitive tools. In D. H. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. New York: Scholastic Press.