Instructional design of interactive multimedia : a cultural critique

Abstract

Instructional design is socially and culturally constructed. This article explores the proposition that the selective traditions of instructional design consist of values, ideologies and images which act in the interests of particular cultural (class and gendered) groups. It examines this premise and argues for multiple cultural, rather than multicultural, contextualisation of instructional design. It situates the multiple cultural model in an eclectic paradigm that appropriately combines elements from (a) behaviourist, constructivist, and critical theory paradigms and (b) weak and strong culturally contextualised design strategies. Cultural context is the very stuff, the scaffolding, of instructional design if users are to be positioned as active participants who are given and take responsibility in the learning-teaching paradigm.