Constructivism: Defense or a Continual Critical Appraisal – A Response to Gil-Pérez et al.

Authors

Mansoor Niaz, Universidad de Oriente, VenezuelaFollow
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alicia Benarroch, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Liberato Cardellini, Università Degli Studi di Ancona, Italy
Carlos E. Laburu, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Brazil
Nicolás Marín, Universidad de Almería, Spain
Luis A. Montes, Escuela Técnica de Pesca de Cumaná, Venezuela
Robert Nola, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Yuri Orlik, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia
Lawrence C. Scharmann, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Chin-Chung Tsai, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Georgios Tsaparlis, University of Ioannina, Greece

Date of this Version

2003

Citation

Published as Science & Education 12 (2003), pp 787–797.

Comments

Copyright© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Used by permission.

Abstract

Abstract. This commentary is a critical appraisal of Gil-Pérez et al.’s (2002) conceptualization of constructivism. It is argued that the following aspects of their presentation are problematic: (a) Although the role of controversy is recognized, the authors implicitly subscribe to a Kuhnian perspective of ‘normal’ science; (b) Authors fail to recognize the importance of von Glasersfeld’s contribution to the understanding of constructivism in science education; (c) The fact that it is not possible to implement a constructivist pedagogy without a constructivist epistemology has been ignored; and (d) Failure to recognize that the metaphor of the ‘student as a developing scientist’ facilitates teaching strategies as students are confronted with alternative/rival/conflicting ideas. Finally, we have shown that constructivism in science education is going through a process of continual critical appraisals.