Awesome question from the discussion board of my Theory class:
As I look at the learning in this class (referring to Learning Theory class), I want one end result. I want to be able to become an ID professional who creates materials for other businesses, schools, organizations.
So, do you think since we are following the ADDIE process, that different groups may have differing philosophies? That as we are analyzing the group we will be working with, that we should see if they are constructivist, interpretivist, or behaviorist? Will their philosophy of life determine our approach to the ID process? Is this context specific or do we as ID professionals try to go with one theory of learning? Or are we like chameleons when we actually find employment?
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My original response to this post was to say let’s talk about it in class, which never happened. But I am so impressed with this question because of its implications for application!! I get rather caught up in the head games when I think about theory and sometimes have to force myself to apply! apply! apply! I’ve worked really hard at doing that because I know it’s a weakness (might be a strength by now).
An article we read last week by Duffy and Jonassen (1991) might help answer this question. The authors say “our theory of learning is implicit in our design and hence one can come to a reasonable understanding of our beliefs about learning from an analysis of that instruction.” They also say,
“Theories of learning and prescriptions for practice must go hand in hand. Indeed, instructional designers often report that they have difficulty getting the teacher to follow the instructional plan. We would suggest that one of the reasons for this is that the teacher very likely will have different goals for learning and a different concept of what it means to “understand” the subject matter. That is, the teacher will have a different theory of learning and will modify the instructional prescriptions to accommodate that theory. Hence, the teacher will seek to supplement or replace content and strategies with approaches that he or she feels will lead to the ‘appropriate’ understanding of the subject matter by students.”
It’s a long quote but it’s all applicable to this question. I do not yet know how to answer it. But I am pretty sure the answer is Yes. Kind of….
In actually doing some ID for another class I used the Collins Model (Collins & Berge, 2006) to guide the application of the theory that I had learned. One of the model’s substantive contributions is the “Course blueprint.” This is essentially a table for the ID and the instructor to fill in together to determine outcomes, resources, activities and evaluation, etc. If what Duffy and Jonassen say above applies, I believe IDs need to use their knowledge of theory to first understand the SME’s theoretical basis (sometimes when they don’t tell you or don’t know themselves) and then to steer him or her towards strategies that align with their epistemic stance. This makes IDs chameleons because we are helping others apply theory to instruction regardless of our personal epistemologies.
Maybe this why we are working so hard to become experts in this stuff!! 
Works Cited:
Collins, M. P., & Berge, Z.L. (2006). Helping faculty help themselves: Design consulting for online teaching. In S. Garg., S. Panda, C.R.K. Murthy & S. Mishra (Eds.) Open and distance education in global environment: Opportunities for collaboration. New Delhi, India: viva Books Private Ltd.
Duffy, T. and Jonassen, D. (1991). Constructivism: New implications for instructional technology? Educational Technology v31 pp. 7-9.
