What is Paradigmatic Shift

The potential implications of a paradigm shift in learning theory from a cognitivist point of view to the social-constructivist point of view are significant and far reaching for research in the field of instructional design (ID). Such a rethinking of learning and knowledge could cause a major shift in current research agendas away from the self-contained, disembodied training and instructional paradigms currently employed and toward learning that happens within the actual context of the work to be done. This chapter will attempt to capture the differences in ID research considerations made necessary by this paradigmatic shift in our understanding of what knowledge is. The implications of this new theory will be considered through a comparison of current trends in the field of ID with a model of ID as imagined under the social-constructivist paradigm set forth by Cook and Brown (1999) and Lave and Wenger (1999).