We are living in a wired and fast-paced world where we are surrounded with cutting-edge technologies that have consistently modernized and globalized society in many ways. How does this influence the destinies of the three primary learning theories—behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism—that were developed decades ago? Are the educators, trainers, and instructional designers on the same page with this modernized and globalized society to adequately deliver the knowledge and instructional materials to today’s learners? With this thesis, the researcher began to unfold the background information and key concepts in four learning theories—behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism—and related these theories to the instructional design models in use today. As we know, the instructional designers play crucial roles in creating efficient and innovative courseware for both online and offline training/educational programs.
The problems above led the researcher to explore whether the four learning frameworks—behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism—were being used by practicing instructional designers today and how they are being interpreted based on new and emerging technologies, learning theories, and models. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to find out how applicable and commonly used these four learning theories—behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism—were by practicing instructional designers in the creation of learning design materials.