Talja, S., Tuominen, K. and Savolainen, R. (2004)
Constructivism, collectivism and constructionism differ in their views of knowledge and language.
Constructivism: a view in which an individual mind constructs reality but within a systematic relationship to the external world (Gergen, 1999) e.g. Piaget.
Social Constructivism: while the mind constructs reality in its relationship to the world, this mental process is significantly informed by influences from societal conventions, history and interaction with significant others (Gergen, 1999: 60). e.g. Vygotsky and later works of Bruner.
Cognitive Constructivism: sees knowledge production as the creation of mental models. HUmans cannot be 'given' information which they can immediately understand, instead they must 'constructu' their own knowledge. An information user is not a passive information processing system but actively makes sense of the surrounding reality and attaches personal meanings to information.
Social Constructionism: the primary emphasis is on discourse as the vehicle through which the self and the world are articulated. (Gergen, 1999: 60) e.g. Bakhtin, Wittgenstein, Foucault. Constructionism sees language as constitutive for the construction of selves and the formation of meanings. Constructionism speaks of discourses, articulations and vocabularies, and replaces the concept of cognition with conversations. We produce and organise social reality together by using language. The main assumption of constructionism is that the boundaries of social knowledge are set by discourses that categorise the world and bring phenomena into view.
Collectivism: the core assumption of collectivism is that it is a mistake to psychologise issues like relevance and user needs as users are social and cultural beings. Collectivist approaches emphasise that information processes should be seen as embedded in social, organisational and professional contexts. hey shift attention from individual knowledge structures to "knowledge-producing, knowledge-sharing and knowledge-consuming communities" (Jacob & Shaw, 1998: 142).
Activity theory: suggest that an individual lives within a world that is at once physically, socially and subjectively constructed, and that living and actin in this world constitutes knowledge (Jacob & Shaw, 1998: 142).
Table 1: Major features, influences and representatives of cognitive constructivism, collectivism & constructionism
Taylor (1986: 35) stated that it is predominantly "organisation that provides the context and establishes the tasks and responsibilities form which problems, and hence, information needs, are generated". He argued that different professions are socialised into their own world views, i.e. CEOs define and solve problems in the same way in Miami and Helsinki, and that the information behaviour of teachers is similar in Pretoria and Portland (Taylor, 1991: 227). According to Taylor professions are the builders of their specific information universes.
"Knowledge is formed through a dialectical relationship between a community and its members... mediated by language and influenced by the history of the specific [domain]" (Hjorland and Albrechtsen, 1995: 407).
Table 2: Major fields of application of cognitive constructivism, collectivism and constructionism in Information Systems:
Constructivism, collectivism and constructionism differ in their views of knowledge and language.
- Constructionism takes discursive practices as its research object and perceives the production of knowledge in discourses as the primary context for information behaviour and knowledge organisation.
- Collectivism takes professions and knowledge domains as its research object and sees the information and communication practices of professions and domains as the promary context for information behaviour and knowledge organisation.
- Cognitive Constructivism takes individual searchers and their interaction with information retrieval systems as its research object and takes the view that work tasks provide the primary context for information behaviour.
Constructivism: a view in which an individual mind constructs reality but within a systematic relationship to the external world (Gergen, 1999) e.g. Piaget.
Social Constructivism: while the mind constructs reality in its relationship to the world, this mental process is significantly informed by influences from societal conventions, history and interaction with significant others (Gergen, 1999: 60). e.g. Vygotsky and later works of Bruner.
Cognitive Constructivism: sees knowledge production as the creation of mental models. HUmans cannot be 'given' information which they can immediately understand, instead they must 'constructu' their own knowledge. An information user is not a passive information processing system but actively makes sense of the surrounding reality and attaches personal meanings to information.
Social Constructionism: the primary emphasis is on discourse as the vehicle through which the self and the world are articulated. (Gergen, 1999: 60) e.g. Bakhtin, Wittgenstein, Foucault. Constructionism sees language as constitutive for the construction of selves and the formation of meanings. Constructionism speaks of discourses, articulations and vocabularies, and replaces the concept of cognition with conversations. We produce and organise social reality together by using language. The main assumption of constructionism is that the boundaries of social knowledge are set by discourses that categorise the world and bring phenomena into view.
Collectivism: the core assumption of collectivism is that it is a mistake to psychologise issues like relevance and user needs as users are social and cultural beings. Collectivist approaches emphasise that information processes should be seen as embedded in social, organisational and professional contexts. hey shift attention from individual knowledge structures to "knowledge-producing, knowledge-sharing and knowledge-consuming communities" (Jacob & Shaw, 1998: 142).
Activity theory: suggest that an individual lives within a world that is at once physically, socially and subjectively constructed, and that living and actin in this world constitutes knowledge (Jacob & Shaw, 1998: 142).
Table 1: Major features, influences and representatives of cognitive constructivism, collectivism & constructionism
Taylor (1986: 35) stated that it is predominantly "organisation that provides the context and establishes the tasks and responsibilities form which problems, and hence, information needs, are generated". He argued that different professions are socialised into their own world views, i.e. CEOs define and solve problems in the same way in Miami and Helsinki, and that the information behaviour of teachers is similar in Pretoria and Portland (Taylor, 1991: 227). According to Taylor professions are the builders of their specific information universes.
"Knowledge is formed through a dialectical relationship between a community and its members... mediated by language and influenced by the history of the specific [domain]" (Hjorland and Albrechtsen, 1995: 407).
Table 2: Major fields of application of cognitive constructivism, collectivism and constructionism in Information Systems:
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