Is instruction design a Science as (Seel, 2017) claim?

 

Is instruction design a Science as (Seel, 2017) claim? Or would it be an art as constructivists theorists claim (Schunk, 2021)? Scientific thinking is a process of discovering the cause-and-effect relationships by asking questions, carefully gathering and examining the evidence, and seeing if all the available information can be combined in to a logical answer (Science Buddies, n.d.). Constructivists on the contrary believe that the world can be constructed in many ways and so any knowledge is a working hypothesis (Schunk, 2021, pp 230).

 I would agree with (Siemens, 2002) and claim that Instructional Design is science but also an art of creating a learning environment that brings the learner from ‘I do not know’ to ‘I know and understand’. Having it as an art and science absolves me from being stationery on a single process of truth. Keeping learning of the child as a focus, I can start as a scientist and act-reflect-modify but keeping the constructivist ethos, I will be open to have my theory proven wrong. In fact I would not wish to be caught in any theory in the first place.

  

Reference: 

1. Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
2. Science Buddies (n.d.). What is the scientific method? Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method.
3. Seel, N. M., Lchmann, T., Blumschien, P., & Podolskiy, O. A. (2017). Instructional design for learning: Theoretical foundations, 1 - 17. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Instructional_Design_for_Learning/UmCwDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
4. Siemens, G. (2002, September 30). Instructional design in e-learning. https://sites.google.com/site/instructionaldesignandtraining/e-learning/instructional-design-in-e-learning-by-george-siemens