[quoting Sims, 14 Nov 95.b] ...we too often see one component of our vast field as being THE way to go. For example, there have been many Learner Control studies with a range of findings, and too often we take those findings and accept them as appropriate to ALL instructional settings. However, if you do a brief review of these papers, the findings range from pre-schoolers to adults--and rarely is there an acknowledgment that the LC/PC dichotomy may not apply to different age groups, etc., the same with constructivism/instructivism--and why not use BOTH in a piece of courseware?
I hardly think these two (LC and constructivism/instructivism) debates can be compared in kind. Learner Control is an area of investigation that has borne various fruits of research (even if most of these fruits, as Tom (Reeves. (1993). Journal of Computer-Based Instruction, 20(2), 39-46) pointed out in a seminal paper, are essentially rotten at the core; whereas, the constructivism/instructivism debate concern epistemologies, and, importantly, represent meta-theories of learning. As such, they stand as quasi-ideological frameworks rather than findings / hypotheses / conjectures that can be, or need to be, validated by apriori research.
It is true that, for most of us, it is respectable to apply one or more theoretical underpinnings to our work (although, perhaps not in the one product/package); but at the highest level, we all have to express a preference for a model of how learning is BEST achieved. And, furthermore, once we have expressed, say, a preference for constructivism, this does not invalidate using instructional strategies that provide for, for example, drill (low level skill learning). This is often our biggest mistake--namely, making the assumption that instructional strategies that provide for low-level learning are necessarily "instructivist" in nature. They are not.
Moreover, although we might expouse a belief in constructivism as an epistemology, we still need to look towards learning theories to inform our work--such as situated cognition, mental models theory, cognitive load theory, etc.
Just a few comments. And very well done with the paper--its certainly triggered a charged debate!