TO ADD: Constructivism notes
Boyland:
Abdal-Haqq:
p.2
Abdal-Haqq (1998, p.2) explains that constructivism is an epistemology, a learning or meaning-making theory, that offers an
explanation of the nature of knowledge and how human beings learn. It maintains that
individuals create or construct their own new understandings or knowledge through the
interaction of what they already know and believe and the ideas, events, and activities
with which they come in contact (Cannella & Reiff, 1994; Richardson, 1997).
Knowledge is acquired through involvement with content instead of imitation or repetition (Kroll &
LaBoskey, 1996).
Abdal-Haqq (1998) Learning activities in constructivist settings are characterized by active engagement, inquiry, problem solving, and collaboration with others.
Abdal-Haqq (1998) Constructivist approaches, in contrast, are regarded as producing greater internalization and deeper understanding than traditional methods.
Abdal-Haqq (1998,p.3)Individual development derives from social interactions within which cultural meanings are shared by the group and eventually internalized by the individual (Richardson, 1997).
Abdal-Haqq (1998,p.3) The subject of study is the dialectical relationship between the individual and the social and cultural milieu.
(Boyland, 2019) Constructivism offers a paradigm of investigative thinking whereby the researcher
journeys with participants into a space of interpreted reality that is as personal and
individual as each person in the collective sampling and as diverse as the multiplicity
of lived experiences that are profiled.
(Boyland, 2019; p.30) refers to Vygotsky (1986) who proposed and establishing the concept that knowledge is a product of the interaction of social and mental functions whereby each individual mentally constructs a world of experience through cognitive processes.
(Boyland, 2019; p.30) Also described as interpretivism, social constructivism can be defined as a means where individuals
seek understanding of their known world in a manner that is of their own experience (Schwandt, 2003; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Creswell, 2013).
(Boyland, 2019; p.30) As individuals live in the world of their personal reality each interprets that reality in their own way leading the researcher towards building a diverse and complex socially constructed landscape that profiles the collective experience in terms of individual knowledge, actions and beliefs, and personal experience: without
any sense of universality
(Boyland, 2019; p.30) Berger and Luckmann (1991), who postulated the notion that knowledge is created by the interaction of individuals, and the influence that one individual has upon another individual. It would also seem to be in agreement with the ideas of Hammersley
(1990) who claimed that while reality is socially defined, it also refers to the subjective experience of everyday life and is about how the world is understood rather than about the objective reality of the natural world.
(Boyland, 2019; p.31)
Cottone (2001) argued that social constructivism highlights the notion that what is real is not objective fact.
(Boyland, 2019; p.31)
Neimeyer and Levitt (2001) proposed that constructivist methodology elucidates local rather than universal
meanings and practices; focusses on provisional rather than essential patterns of meaning construction; considers knowledge to be the production of social and personal processes of making meaning; and is more concerned with the pragmatic utility of validity of application than with validity per se.
(Boyland, 2019; p.31) processes of constructing meaning in a given personal or social context without the presumption of universality that differentiates constructivist methodology from traditional knowledge claims and it is these very distinctive
patterns that set constructivist methods apart from constructionist methods, where attention is shifted to broader systems that characterise cultural contexts.
(Boyland, 2019; p.31) Owen (1995) suggested that the
tool of knowing is inevitably the subjectivity of the people themselves and while acknowledging that each human being is an individual, it also needs to be acknowledged that humans are part of a shared collective of aims, values, and experiences.
(Boyland, 2019; p.32) The approach of human beings constructing a shared social reality was also posited by Berger and Luckmann (1991), who suggested that much of the individual’s personal space is intimately influenced by others who are around.
(Boyland, 2019; p.32) Distancing the Self from a taken-for-granted stance is actualised through incorporation of processes of analytic bracketing which, as defined by Braud (1998), are about attempting to remove biases while seeking to provide as clear and pure a channel as possible: one that is free from impeding and interfering preconceptions about the research topic.
(Boyland, 2019; p.32) As contextualised by Marton and Booth (1997) and Sandberg (1996), it is interpretative awareness that is embodied in a bracketed reduction of personal experience, enabling the researcher to avoid generation of description that is beyond evidence generated by participants.
(Boyland, 2019; p.32) Constructivism offers a paradigm of thinking whereby the researcher journeys with participants into a space of interpreted reality that is as personal and individual as is each person in the collective sampling and as diverse as the collective of lived experiences that are profiled. Constructivist research demands a fluidity that requires the researcher to adopt a view that each participant constructs reality differently. These differences stem from the various ways individual participants acquire, select,
interpret, and organise the knowledge that they bear and the information that they are willing to share in the telling of a story that identifies as a world of personal reality.
(Boyland, 2019; p.33) From a constructivist perspective, data gathering and data analysis processes seek to elicit an understanding of how persons create their knowledge constructs and how these constructs contribute to understanding social influences and individual thought processes. When the locus of inquiry is to profile distinctive patterns of constructing meaning within a specifically defined social context without the presumption of universality, a constructivist methodology is ideally suited for engaging with a target demographic that encompasses
constituencies with a focus on individuals, families, workers, students, children, parents, adolescents, caregivers, professional associates, recreational/sporting organisations, cultural/religious/
gender groups, and multiple other social constructs within the community of human experience.
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