Constructionism and Constructivism
One position, three spellings and no reconciliation. What it means to design a study around views of reality that people build for themselves — and how to handle a source that cannot keep the term steady.
The position in the source's single line
Two things are doing work in that sentence. The first is construct: reality here is not a fixed object waiting to be measured, but something people assemble out of their experience and their context. That is an ontological commitment as much as an epistemological one, which is why the source describes both sets of assumptions as travelling together into the methodology — see epistemology: how knowledge is created. The second is seeks to discover: the researcher's job is to find out what those constructions are, not to correct them against an external standard.
That combination is what separates the position from positivism and post-positivism. A positivist design treats variation between respondents as noise around a true value. A constructivist design treats it as the signal — the thing the study exists to describe.
One position, three spellings
The supplied teaching material does not use a single word for this position. Three separate places in the same body of teaching use two different words, and no passage explains the difference or nominates a preferred form.
WHERE EACH FORM APPEARS IN THE SUPPLIED MATERIAL
| Location | Word used | Exact context |
|---|---|---|
| Week 2 prose on epistemological positions | Constructionism | Named as one of the three positions generally considered, with positivism and interpretivism |
| Week 2 terminology table | Constructivist | Row heading, defined as people constructing their own views of reality; associated term social constructivism |
| The methodological pyramid figure | Constructionism | Base tier, listed among the eight fundamental philosophies |
Both words are in the supplied source. This page reports both rather than silently choosing one.
What the definition commits you to
Unpacked into design consequences, that one sentence carries four commitments. They are the reason a constructivist study looks different on the page from a survey with the same subject matter.
Four commitments in the definition
There are several views, not one view with error
If people construct their own views, then two accounts of the same delivery process can both be reported without one being wrong. Your findings section has room for more than one answer.
The researcher seeks, and does not supply
The instrument has to let a view arrive that you did not anticipate. Closed categories written in advance can only return the constructions you already had in mind.
The construction travels with its setting
A view is built out of a particular role, history and organisation. Report the setting with the finding, because lifting the account out of its context is what turns a constructivist claim into an unsupportable general one.
The researcher is inside the frame
If views of reality are constructed, yours is too. The source ties epistemology to the relationship between researcher and topic; a constructivist study is expected to say what the researcher's position in that setting was.
Designing a study that can discover a construction
The sequence below turns the position into design decisions. It is this library's synthesis of what the source's definition requires, not a procedure printed in the supplied material.
From position to instrument
State the phenomenon as something people hold a view of
Not "the effectiveness of the stage-gate process" but "how project staff understand what the stage gate is for". The first is measurable against a benchmark; the second is a construction.
Map the positions you expect to differ
Role, seniority, discipline, tenure, location, whether the person is in the delivery team or receiving the delivery. These are your recruitment strata.
Recruit for range, not for proportion
You want each identified position represented well enough to describe. You are not building a sample that mirrors the population, because you will not be reporting proportions.
Build an instrument that can be surprised
Open questions, room to follow an unexpected answer, and enough of the participant's own vocabulary retained that you can quote it later.
Analyse for patterns and for divergence
Group accounts that share a construction, and give equal attention to the accounts that stand apart. A single well-evidenced dissenting construction is a finding.
Report constructions with their holders and their setting
Each reported view should be attributable to a described group in a described context, so a reader can judge how far it might travel.
What data would satisfy a constructivist reader
A reviewer working from this position asks a specific question of your evidence: can I hear the participants in it? Data that has been fully converted into categories you wrote in advance cannot answer that.
Counts as evidence
- Participants' own descriptions, in their own words
- Extended answers where the participant sets the terms
- Accounts from several positions in the same setting
- Documents read as artefacts someone produced for a purpose
- Contradictions between accounts, recorded rather than resolved
Does not settle the question
- Ratings on a scale you designed, with no room for a different frame
- Percentages of respondents selecting a predetermined option
- A single interview treated as the organisation's view
- Accounts stripped of who said them and where
- Averaged responses, which erase exactly the divergence you were studying
The source's own worked design questions include one that sits naturally here: how do managers and workers apply the ethical standards of service organisations? The method it records is interviews or questionnaires with follow-up of responses to specific applications, and the slide labels it qualitative. Note the shape — two groups, their own applications of a standard, and follow-up rather than a fixed instrument. Data types are set out at attribute, ordinal and numerical data.
Worked example: inter-generational differences in tools and techniques
A study in the exemplar volume of master's project management research examined inter-generational differences in the project management tools and techniques practitioners use. Its stated design was mixed qualitative and quantitative: interview transcripts compared against survey results, and both triangulated through the literature review.
This is the useful lesson for a project manager: a constructivist position does not forbid you from counting things. It forbids you from treating the counts as the whole answer. The survey tells you the distribution; the interviews tell you what the categories mean to the people inside them, which is the part a delivery decision usually turns on. The two design families are compared at qualitative and quantitative research compared, and further designs from the same volume at seventeen worked research designs.
The boundary with interpretive research
The two definitions sit next to each other in the same table and are easy to blur. Read them slowly and the difference is one of object: what people build, against what people say.
TWO ADJACENT DEFINITIONS, COMPARED WORD BY WORD
| Constructivist | Interpretive | |
|---|---|---|
| Source definition | People construct their own views of reality and researcher seeks to discover this | People provide their own accounts or explanations of situations and behaviours |
| What is studied | The view of reality itself, and how it was built | The account or explanation the person offers of a situation or behaviour |
| Associated terms in the source | Social constructivism | Phenomenology, ethnography, phenomenography, symbolic interaction, intersubjectivity, subjectivist |
| Weight of the source's treatment | One associated term | Six associated terms, several of which appear nowhere else in the material |
The source places both positions in the same table but never states how to choose between them. See interpretivism and phenomenology.
Claims, and the three that get overstated
Available to you
- How the groups you studied construct the phenomenon, described in their terms
- Where those constructions converge and where they diverge
- What appears to shape a construction — role, tenure, position in the delivery chain
- What the divergence implies for a decision, stated as an implication and not as a measurement
- A defensible account of your own position in the setting and how it shaped what you heard
What to carry forward
- The source's definition is one line: people construct their own views of reality and the researcher seeks to discover this.
- Constructionism, Constructivist and social constructivism all appear in the supplied material with no reconciliation — flag it, do not hide it.
- Recruit for range of position rather than proportion, and treat divergence between accounts as the finding.
- Mixed designs are compatible with the position, provided the counting does not become the conclusion.
- Report constructions with their holders and their setting; the claim stops where the setting stops.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a real difference between constructionism and constructivism?
Parts of the wider methods literature distinguish them, but the supplied teaching source does not — it uses constructionism in its prose and pyramid figure and Constructivist in its terminology table, with the same single definition behind them. If your document needs to draw the distinction, you must cite a methods text that makes it, because this teaching material cannot support the claim.
Can a constructivist study use a questionnaire?
Yes, provided the questionnaire leaves room for the participant's own framing rather than only offering categories you wrote in advance. The exemplar study on inter-generational differences paired survey results with interview transcripts for exactly that reason. What the position rules out is treating the closed responses as the complete answer.
How many participants does a constructivist study need?
The supplied source gives no number for any position, and sample size here is governed by coverage rather than arithmetic. The working test is whether every position you identified as likely to differ is represented well enough that you could describe its construction to a reader — and you should cite a methods text for whatever rule you apply.
My sponsor wants to know what percentage of staff hold a view. Can I answer that from this design?
Not from a constructivist design alone, because you recruited for range rather than proportion. You can tell your sponsor which distinct views exist, what each one is built on and what each implies for the decision — and if a proportion is genuinely required, add a separate instrument designed to produce one and report the two claims separately.
Does this position mean anything goes?
No. Saying that participants construct their own views does not excuse you from evidencing what you report. Each construction you describe has to be traceable to data you collected, attributable to a described group, and open to a reader who wants to check whether your reading of the transcripts is reasonable.
References and source attribution
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing (Chapter 1, p. 50 — the methodological pyramid reproduced in the teaching material).
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. (the exemplar volume; design summaries paraphrased from published abstracts).
- The supplied teaching source: Week 2 study notes, slide deck and terminology tables, 'Introduction to Research Methods', for a master's-level research subject in project management.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Rewrite my research question so it asks how something is understood rather than how much of it there is.
- Which groups in my organisation should I recruit from to cover the range of likely constructions?
- How do I report a view held by only one interview participant without overstating it?
- Draft a sentence acknowledging that my source uses both constructionism and constructivism.
- Where does my draft findings chapter slip from describing constructions to asserting proportions?