Educational technology pedagogy: A looseness of fit between learning theories and pedagogy

Bernstein's (1996: 2000) typology of pedagogy as competence and performance pedagogic modalities provides a productive lens for the analysis of different modalities of educational technology pedagogy. The question addressed in this paper is why theories of learning and pedagogy have become conflated in educational technology literature. The paper illustrates that behavioural and cognitive psychologybased pedagogy corresponds to Bernstein's performance pedagogic modality and constructivist educational technology pedagogy corresponds to Bernstein's competence pedagogic modality. The paper shows how concepts, which surfaced initially in the discourse of psychology and particularly in learning theories, have been taken up and recontextualised. Furthermore the paper, using Bernstein's notion of the ‘social logic’ underlying pedagogies, demonstrates why learning theories, particularly that of cognitive constructivism, have appealed to pedagogic constructivists and come to dominate educational technology researc...