Teaching outdoor and adventure activities: an investigation of a primary school physical education professional development p

Constructivism.
Constructivists share with interpretivists a focus on how 
people live and interact within their own social worlds (Creswell, 2003). How they 
differ centres on the constructivists’ assumption that knowledge is created by the mind 
and is socially and experientially based (Creswell, 2003; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; 
Schwandt, 1994). Knowledge therefore is ‘co-created’ through interaction with others 
and with the environment. Teachers working together in a school routinely interacting 
with each other come to share meanings and judgements. According to Kirk and 
Macdonald (1998) there is a growing interest in the concept of constructivism in 
learning research and more specifically teacher learning. Constructionist researchers try 
to elicit the researched views of their world, their work and the events they have 
experienced. They look for specifics and try to base an understanding on these 
(Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001; Gubrium & Holstein, 1997). 
The constructivist paradigm assumes a relativist ontology (in the form of 
multiple mental constructions, socially and experientially based, local and specific, 
dependent for their form and content on the persons who hold them), it has a 
subjectivist epistemology (researcher and researched into are fused into a single entity, 
as the findings are literally the creation of the process of the interaction between the 
two), and a hermeneutic methodology (individual constructions are elicited and refined, 
and compared and contrasted with the aim of generating constructions on which there is 
substantial agreement). The involvement of the researcher is accepted and valued and it 

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is acknowledged that the researcher impacts on the situation and in turn is impacted 
upon (Appleton & King, 2002; Guba & Lincoln, 1994).
Criticisms of interpretivism and constructivism and their related qualitative 
methodologies focus on what is seen as their lack of scientific rigour (Kelly & Long, 
2000; Schwandt, 1994). The difficulty with this argument is that it is based on the 
‘failure’ to meet the criteria used to assess quantitative research, for example, 
objectivity, validity, reliability, generalizability, and replicability. Ironically the 
weaknesses of interpretivist/constructivist research are increasingly being viewed as 
their strengths (McPherson & Leydon, 2002). It has been suggested that qualitative 
researchers concern with reflexivity (a critical examination of researchers beliefs, 
preconceptions, values and interests) force them to consider their role during data 
collection and analysis adding a critical dimension to the research (McPherson & 
Leydon, 2002) not normally addressed by quantitative researchers. Qualitative work 
can also be criticised for having too small a sample and as a result has been described as 
merely anecdotal and unrepresentative. It can also be argued that small-scale work can 
provide richness and depth not always evident in large-scale quantitative studies.