One of my publications is:
Taber, K. S. (2020). Constructive Alternativism: George Kelly's Personal Construct Theory. In B. Akpan & T. Kennedy (Eds.), Science Education in Theory and Practice: An Introductory Guide to Learning Theory (pp. 373-388). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Access the chapter on SpringerLink
The author's manuscript version of this chapter is available from this link.
Abstract:
George Kelly's professional focus was on supporting people who were struggling with the stresses of their lives. Finding that the Freudian ideas he had been offered as tools in his own professional training offered little in working towards change with many of his clients, Kelly developed his own approach based upon a constructivist perspective of learning (which he called constructive alternativism) centred on the core metaphor of person-as-scientist. People, like good scientists, should always be open to exploring new data and considering alternative explanations and conceptions, rather than becoming fixed in established ways of thinking. Kelly's work developed into a recognised approach in psychology, and became very influential in at least one school of thought in science education. Kelly did not only offer a theory that could support clinical practice for therapists, but also offered a methodology for exploring a learner's developing thinking. In his own educational work, he found that his approach offered insights into teachers' classroom difficulties. This chapter considers the core ideas of Kelly's theory in comparison with other constructivist perspectives employed in science education. The chapter also discusses how Kelly's personal construct theory can inform classroom teaching and reflects on an approach that explicitly expects people to behave scientifically as a perspective on science teaching and learning.
Keywords
- The method of triads
- Repertory grid
- Personal constructs
- Constructivism
- Children's science
- Alternative conceptions
- Person-as-scientist
- Falsificationism
- Accumulative fragmentalism
- Systems of constructs
- Building one's own maze
- Construct repertory test
- Conceptual change
- Triads as a teaching tool
Contents
- Introduction
- George Kelly (1905-1967)
- Constructive alternativism
- Personal construct theory
- People as (informal) scientists
- Science as a process of knowledge construction
- The construct system as a framework
- A methodology for PCT
- The construct repertory test: the method of triads
- The repertory grid
- Classroom application
The author's manuscript version of this chapter is available from this link.
