Does Research Favor Constructivism or Instructivism?
More than half a century ago, Dorothy Gardner (1942) attempted to put to rest once and for all a similar controversy raging at that time about curriculum and teaching methods by conducting a comparative study of two nursery schools. School A was characterized by what would be called today “developmentally appropriate practice,” emphasizing creativity and spontaneous play. School B was characterized by formal teacher-directed activities, now commonly referred to as “academic” in focus. Despite Gardner s findings in favor of School A, the debate over curriculum and methods resumed barely a generation later. In the past 20 years, similar comparative studies have been reported (see, for example, Consortium for Longitudinal Studies, 1983; Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 1993; Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997; Marcon, 1992, 1995). The results of these studies have been somewhat mixed, though generally close to Gardner s earlier findings that those children enrolled in preschools on the constructi
