ZDM Mathematics Education
DOI 10.1007/s11858-017-0875-3
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
There ismore variation within thanacross domains: aninterview
withPaul A. Kirschner aboutapplying cognitive psychology-
based instructional design principles inmathematics teaching
andlearning
PaulA.Kirschner1,2 LievenVerschaffel3 JonStar4 WimVanDooren3
Accepted: 2 July 2017
FIZ Karlsruhe 2017
Abstract In this interview we asked Paul A. Kirschner
about his comments and reflections regarding the idea to
apply cognitive psychology-based instructional design
principles to mathematics education and some related
issues. With a main focus on cognitive psychology, educa-
tional psychology, educational technology and instructional
design, this internationally well-known scholar reflects
on the work conducted within the mathematics education
community. This paper presents a summary of the com-
ments and reflections that he expressed during the inter-
view. A first main theme relates to the general idea behind
the special issue, i.e. the feasibility of applying cognitive
theory-based instructional design principles in the field of
mathematics education. Second, the interview related to the
set of instructional design principles that were included in
the special issue and those that were omitted. Third, reflec-
tions are made on the differences between the application
of instructional design principles in mathematics education
research and in instructional design research more gener-
ally. One main idea running through this interview is that,
according to Kirschner, mathematics education research is
not necessarily a special field in its own, as the variation of
instructional goals and of research foci within mathematics
education is at least as large as the variation across different
content domains.
* Lieven Verschaffel
Lieven.Verschaffel@ped.kuleuven.be
1
Open Universiteit, Heerlen, TheNetherlands
2
University ofOulu, Oulu, Finland
3
University ofLeuven, Leuven, Belgium
4
Harvard Graduate School ofEducation, Cambridge, USA
1Introduction
This paper contains the comments and reflections of Prof.
dr. Paul A. Kirschner, dr.h.c. regarding the idea to apply
cognitive psychology-based instructional design principles
to mathematics education and some related issues during
an interview on June 6 2017. Paul A. Kirschner (b. 1951)
is university professor of the Open University of the Neth-
erlands and visiting professor Education at the University
of Oulu, Finland. He is an internationally renowned expert
in his field, which encompasses lifelong learning, computer
assisted collaborative learning, design of electronic and
other innovative learning environments, the use of media
in education, development of teacher extensive (distance)
education materials, competencies and the use of educa-
tional technologies in education. He co-authored the classic
article Why minimal guidance during instruction does not
work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery,
problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching
(Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006), and is co-author of the
influential book Ten steps to complex learning: A system-
atic approach to four-component instructional design (van
Merrinboer & Kirschner, 2017).
From the perspectives of cognitive psychology, educa-
tional psychology, educational technology, and instruc-
tional design, Paul A. Kirschner comments on the applica-
bility of cognitive psychology-based instructional design
principles to mathematics education and some related
issues.
2The interview
What do you think about the general idea behind
this special issue, namely to look at the feasibility of
13
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applying cognitive theory based instructional design
principles in mathematics education?
For me it is always important to look at the explicit
application of (cognitive) theory-based instructional
design principles in all kinds of learning settings and
areas, and, with this, its application in all types of
instruction and curricular domainsincluding in math-
ematics education. As I see it, the ultimate goal is achiev-
ing effective, efficient and enjoyable learning through
effective, efficient, and enjoyable instruction. Thats my
Holy Trinity of instructional design. Of course, it is not
always possible to realize these three elements simulta-
neously or equally in instruction and learning, but this is
what I am striving for as an instructional designer. And
as a researcher, the goal of my research is always to try
to design and study an intervention that will achieve an
increase in at least one of the three, but never to the detri-
ment of either of the other two. Ideally an intervention
would achieve all three. I do, though, have a problem
with the (implicit) assumption behind your first question,
namely that mathematics is something special in this
respect.
Before addressing this important issue of specificity,
could you explain what you mean by the terms effective,
efficient and enjoyable?
Effectiveness means that you realize the maximal possi-
ble learning outcomes with the given resources and within
the given amount of time, whereas efficiency means that
you succeed in producing the intended or required learning
outcomes with as few resources and little time as needed.
Making teaching and learning enjoyable is in my opinion
also very important, particularly in view of the huge prob-
lems of demotivation and dropout in secondary and higher
education among students and teachers. But please do not
interpret enjoyable in a narrow or simplistic way. It abso-
lutely does not mean that learning at school should always
and necessarily be pleasant and fun. Im not talking about
creating edutainment. Rather, it means that learning should,
in the end, be rewarding. Think of the process of becoming
an expert. Usually the path to expertise is not very pleas-
ant and funthink about the numerous hours of practice
or training an expert swimmer or cellist has to go through
before (s)he becomes an expertbut these efforts are, after
all, rewarding. For instance, when the swimmer or cellist
wins a prize or gets other kinds of recognition or apprecia-
tion for his or her expertise.
In your initial response to the first question, you said
that you have a problem with the idea that mathematics
is something special. What exactly do you mean by that?
Do you mean that you do not expect substantially dif-
ferent results, conclusions or recommendations depend-
ing on the subject-matter domain to which you want to
apply the instructional design principles or techniques?
13
P.A.Kirschner et al.
Indeed. I am not a proponent of the ideas and assump-
tions behind the concept of pedagogical content knowledge
(PCK), because it puts too much emphasis on both the dif-
ferences between and too little emphasis on the differences
within content domains. In all curriculum domainsbe it
mathematics, physics, economy or historythere is much
more variation within the domain than across the domains.
In that sense, PCK is an illusion. On the one hand, there is
no evidence that mathematics as a domain is so different
from these other disciplines that instructional design princi-
ples and techniques such as the ones addressed in this spe-
cial issue will work fundamentally differently there. And,
on the other hand, mathematics itself has many sides. There
is pure mathematics, which, in my opinion, comes very
close to disciplines such as language and logic. But there
is also the applied side of mathematics, for instance, when
mathematics is used as a (modelling) tool in fields such as
science, technology and engineering. So, when thinking
about pure mathematics, PCK for teaching mathematics is
in many respects more similar to PCK for teaching logic or
language than it is to any of the other STEM subjects. On
the other hand, when thinking about teaching and learning
applied mathematics, then the PCK that is needed is largely
the same as for engineering or applied physics. And,
finally, when the mathematics curriculum addresses issues
such as mathematics as a historical, social, and cultural
phenomenon, then what is needed in terms of PCK is not
very different from what is needed in disciplines like his-
tory, sociology, economics, or psychology. In sum, I do not
see the rationale for claiming the uniqueness and integrity
of mathematics having its own specific and unique instruc-
tional design principles and techniques and its own PCK.
OK, your point is clear. In your view it may be the-
oretically unwise and practically unhelpful to think of
PCK for mathematics, but would you go as far as saying
that also for the teaching and learning of a specific cur-
ricular topiclets say teaching percentages or graphs
in mathematicsPCK is also an illusion?
I have a second Holy Trinity. In that way you can
say that Im polytheistic. My second Holy Trinity deals
with what I call making a teacher into a teacher just like
a three-star Michelin chef. A good chef must have (a)
tools, (b) techniques and (c) ingredients. OK? So, a good
chef has a deep conceptual knowledge of his or her tools,
techniques and ingredients, and can make proper use of
these, in such a way that he or she is capable of creating
a meal thats healthy, delicious and looks good. A tool in
that respect is an oven, or a pan or a knife. A technique is
baking, steaming, frying, roasting and things like that. And
you have also the ingredients, like vegetables, potatoes,
fish, herbs, spices, etc. A chef will know that if you do spe-
cific things to a piece of meat it will make it taste like shoe
leather, for example, but if you do something else, it will
There ismore variation within thanacross domains: aninterview withPaul A. Kirschner about
come out deliciously. Like the chef, the teacher also has
tools, techniques and ingredients, and makes use of them to
make learning effective, efficient and enjoyable. And that is
nothing different for a math teacher or any other teacher. I
mean if youre a math teacher, you need to have a deep con-
ceptual knowledge of math, just like if youre an economics
teacher, you have a deep conceptual knowledge of econom-
ics, and if youre a Dutch teacher you need deep concep-
tual knowledge of the Dutch language in all of its aspects.
Thats the domain in which you have the conceptual knowl-
edge, but in your mathematics or language or whatever
courses, depending upon what youre trying to teach at that
moment, you are trying to get students to just learn effec-
tively, efficiently, and in an enjoyable way. Thats where the
knowledge and mastery of the general instructional design
principles and techniques comes in. In instructional design,
or teaching for that matter (as I feel that the teacher is an
instructional designer), the tools that we use are things like
books, computers, white- and/or smart-boards, etcetera.
The techniques are things like lectures, simulations, drill-
and-practice, collaborative learning (either face-to-face
or computer-supported), and so forth. And the ingredi-
ents are two-fold. On the one hand they are the pedagogi-
cal ingredients that specify the techniques such as differ-
ent types of questions, prompts, assignments, and the like.
On the other hand you have ingredients that come from the
content domain. In this way, the efficient, effective, and
enjoyable instruction that the teacher provides, all of this
uniquely comes together in a highly specific constellation:
a very specific mathematical topic needs to be taught, and
the teacher can consider a variety of instructional tools
and techniques to address this topic; three-star Michelin
instruction! So, as you can see, in my conceptualization of
what makes a good teacher or instructional designer in a
particular domain, I do not need a third component, PCK,
besides the professionals deep knowledge of the domain
and his or her expertise in designing instruction in general.
If you would translate that into the design of a
teacher training program, would you argue that the
most efficient way to organise teacher education in a
specific domain like mathematics is by just focusing
on content knowledge (CK) and on general pedagogi-
cal or didactical knowledge (PK)to use Shulmans
terminology?
Yes, you need a good foundation of the two, and then
you have to integrate the two of them in all your courses. I
dont think it is interesting for a chemist or a lawyer to have
ethics as a specific course in the fourth year. Ethics has
to be integrated in everything that a chemist does, or that
a biologist, a lawyer or a doctor does. But I think a basic
knowledge of ethical standards and practices within law is
very important. It is sometimes more effective, efficient or
enjoyable to learn that in isolation, but in other situations
its very important to learn it in integration with other top-
ics. So its not a question of Lets teach them a and b, and
hope that they can integrate it. If you look at our 4C/ID
model, we preach exactly the opposite. We preach to make
use of authentic whole tasks and to integrate the learning
of theory, principles and things all while working on these
authentic whole tasks. So we are not just hoping that at the
end of the road learners will be capable of doing the inte-
gration themselves as is often the case in a curriculum. But
that is something different than saying that there is a spe-
cific pedagogy for mathematics. And the way I read most
of the articles in this special issue, they seem to suggest
that there is such a special pedagogy for mathematics as a
domain. However, when I look at what these researchers
are doing, they are just presenting specific cases where a
domain and a general principle are brought together.
This is the impression I had when I was reading the
articles of this special issue. And not only here, but also in
other situations. For instance, it seems as though research-
ers and practitioners active in STEM have the idea that
there is something specific to STEM. Understanding a
graph or a function in mathematics is not substantially dif-
ferent from understanding a graph or a function within eco-
nomics or psychology. I do think that proving a theory, or
a theorem, in mathematics is fundamentally different from
proving something in economics, but thats because that
part of mathematics relates to mathematics as a pure sci-
ence, while what you would want to prove within econom-
ics would probably be some aspect of behavioral science.
It seems that we are now often considering the curricular
domains as consistent wholes and focus on differences
between curricular domains, while there may be more
variation within the domains than across domains, at the
expense of the similarities that are there across domains.
What do you think about the set of instructional
design principles that we have selected for this special
issue? Is this the list that you would have expected?
Would you have excluded some principles and/or
included others? Are there principles that you think
deserve more attention in the mathematics education
community, or that are even completely overlooked so
far?
I think its a very good overview of instructional tech-
niques. By the way: I consider techniques to be a better
term than principles. When I am thinking of Instructional
Design (ID) principles, I am thinking, for instance, of R.
Mayers multimedia principle (i.e., the principle stating
that people learn more deeply from words and pictures
than from words alone) or his redundancy principle (i.e.,
the principle stating that redundant material interferes with
rather than facilitates learning, for instance, that people
learn better from graphics and narration than from graph-
ics, narration and on-screen text), or things like that. Most
13

of the topics addressed in this special issue are instructional
techniques that can be used in teaching in general and in
mathematics teaching in particular.
For the vast majority of the papersdealing with
themes such as using comparison, refutational text, worked
examples, etc.there is no doubt that they nicely fit into
the list. However, after having read the papers, I was in
doubt whether what they address can be labelled an instruc-
tional principle or technique. This holds especially for the
contribution about metacognition. Thats in my view a
topic that is situated at a different level than all these other
techniques. You first need knowledge (=first level) to think
about knowledge (=second level).
Furthermore, there are some other well-known cognitive
psychology-based instructional design principles that could
have been added, the most important ones being:
Spaced or distributed practice: this technique, which
is one of the most widely studied cognitive principles
today, states that spreading out learning opportunities
be it within a single lesson or across several lessons
leads to better retention of studied material than does
providing multiple learning opportunities one right after
the other.
Retrieval practice (or practice testing, or test-enhanced
learning): this technique is based on the well-docu-
mented finding that long-term memory is increased
when some of the learning period is devoted to retriev-
ing the to-be-remembered information through testing
with proper feedback. So, the idea is that it is useful
for learners to test their knowledge of the to-be-remem-
bered material during the studying process, instead of
merely reading and studying the material. This can be
done, for instance, by using flashcards or quizzes, or any
other technique requiring retrieval of previously learned
content. Particularly for mathematics, which involves an
important memorization and automatization component
(as is recognized in the article on deliberate practice) as
well as principles for their use, I guess this technique
may be of great educational value.
Using epistemic questions or epistemic tasks: bringing
in epistemological elements in the learning environ-
ment, which can be done already very early in the learn-
ing process.
But I understand of course that you could come up with
a longer list for this special issue. Otherwise you would
have ended up with an encyclopedia instead of a special
issue. So, I think in the end that it is a very nice overview.
Finally, it will not come as a surprise that I would have
liked to see an additional article in this special issue about
the 4C/ID model, or, if you want to phrase it differently, the
whole task approach to learning mathematics, developed
13
P.A.Kirschner et al.
by my colleague Jeroen van Merrinboer, myself, and oth-
ers. 4C means four components and ID means Instruc-
tional Design. The 4C/ID instructional model is char-
acterized by four components: (1) Learning Tasks, (2)
Supportive Information, (3) Procedural Information and (4)
Part-Task Practice. The tasks are ordered in task-classes at
the same level of task complexity and each task offers at
the beginning a lot of scaffolding which is reduced as the
learner progresses until the final task(s) in the class is(are)
without any instructional support (i.e., are natural test-
ing moments). Also, as the learner progresses the task-
classes become more complex. 4C/ID can be considered
as a mainstream and practical Instructional Design model
that addresses the issue of how to teach complex skills.
The 4C/ID approach has been used in fields like medicine,
economics, and engineering throughout the world, surely it
can be applied to learning mathematics and acquiring com-
plex mathematical skills. But of course, such a contribution
would not have fit so well in the list, because our 4C/ID
model is situated at a different level than the distinct tech-
niques that now comprise the special issue. It is an inte-
grated model for instructional design that combines and
integrates many tools, techniques, and ingredients rather
than being just another technique.
Do you see remarkable/interesting differences in how
the authors contributing to this special issue conceive
or operationalize the application of their principle in
their mathematics educational research (programmes),
as compared to how those principles are typically con-
ceived in the general research on instructional design?
No, not really. But for me, this is also not a surprise.
As I said, one could have written very similar articles and
reported very similar empirical findings based on research
situated in other domains such as economics, history, psy-
chology, or whatever. Of course, some of these reviews
and empirical studies might come up with somewhat dif-
ferent results and conclusions, but I doubt if these differ-
ences would be substantial and I also doubt if these differ-
ences would have to do with differences in the nature of the
domains as such. So, my concern is not with what is being
described and reported in this special issue; it is with the
flavour of exceptionality and the uniqueness that it breeds
with respect to the domain of mathematics. So, as I said, I
generally agree with the techniques that have been chosen,
and I also appreciate the studies being reported and gen-
erally support the conclusions being derived from them.
My only query relates to the explicit or implicit claims of
the exceptionality and the uniqueness that it breathes with
respect to mathematics. I do not see on what grounds these
claims are based and where that need to make such claims
comes from.
In the current special issue, various papers reflect
on what can be learned from applying a (general)
There ismore variation within thanacross domains: aninterview withPaul A. Kirschner about
instructional design principle or theory in a specific
domain, and what the principle can bring to the math-
ematics education community. Do you see any lessons
that the research community on (general) instructional
design can learn from this work within the mathematics
education community?
My answer is again: no, not really. I mean, everything
that has been proven to work in the instructional design
community, should also work for certain aspects of learn-
ing mathematics. Notice that I say for certain aspects of
because learning mathematics is, as I stated before, very
broad and highly multi-dimensional. As I also said, the var-
iability within the domains is much larger than the variabil-
ity across domains. So, I would expect that every instruc-
tional design principle can also be used for mathematics,
ormore preciselyfor a certain subdomain or aspect of
mathematics. Otherwise it would not be a general princi-
ple. It would almost be a contradictio in terminis to say
that a general principle does not apply to mathematics edu-
cation. If so, it would not be a general ID principle.
Does it make sense, to you, from a theoretical and/
or methodological principle, to reflect on the applicabil-
ity of a single instructional design principle as we did in
this special issue? Or should one always involve several
such principles and conceive/implement/test them in
combination?
As I said before, theres a difference between a specific
instructional design principle or technique and an instruc-
tional approach, method or model. I think it makes sense
to isolate, for theoretical or research purposes, certain ID
principHow do you see the relationshiples or techniques,
but in actual teaching and learning, they always will come
in combined and integrated forms.
In this respect, I refer again to the 4C/ID model that my
colleague Jeroen van Merrienboer developed and that we
further refined in our Ten Steps to Complex Learning (van
Merrinboer & Kirschner, 2017) and in which almost all
of the instructional techniques that are being addressed in
this special issue nicely fit. Take, for instance, variation
in our model we talk about variability of practice. Or take
analogies, which is also one of the instructional tools we
explicitly apply in our model. The same holds for worked
examples and for deliberate practice, which coincides with
part-task practice in our model, as well as for using self-
explanation, multiple representations, refutational texts,
etc. And, yes, even though in earlier versions of the model
there was little attention to personalization, in the most
recent version personalization of knowledge and learning
has received increased attention. And, earlier in the inter-
view I questioned whether metacognition fits into the list
of techniques. But in the latest version of the Ten Steps we
have an element that is somewhat related to that technique.
We speak about the importance of self-directed learning
and self-determined learning, which we refer to as second-
order skills, that is skills that a learner gradually develops
while learning the declarative and procedural knowledge
the learning environment is primarily aiming at (i.e., the
first order skills) and we describe and illustrate how you
design learning environments so that while acquiring the
first order skill learners also acquire the second order skill.
A good illustration of what I mean is the good work
being done on scripting by people like Frank Fischer and
his group in Mnchen. Much of the research shows that
the scripts are very effective for learning within that one
situation, or series of problems, that is being taught but that
there is little to no transfer to how do I make use of that
same idea behind the script in different situations. Its kind
of like what the difference between what Gabi Solomon
called the effects of something and the effects with some-
thing. The scripts used by the learners, in achieving first
order learning, are the effects with; if they use the script,
they will learn what they need to learn better. But the effect
of a script is that in a similar situation, the learner can make
use of that same script (i.e., the principles underlying the
script) for solving the problem or carrying out the task.
I often give the example of if you make use of planning
software for a project, the effects with the tool is that your
project is better, and gets done in time, but the effects of
the planning software is, for example, that you have learned
things about critical paths. That means, if Im making
a dinnerI used to be a cook and I still cook daily, so I
always use examples from the realm of cookingI know
there is a critical path with respect to sauce and meat. If
I make the meat before I make the sauce, my meat either
gets cold or overcooked. So I know theres a critical path,
I first have to make my sauce, and then I have to do my
meat. That is the effect of the planning programmethat
you really understand the underlying principle of a critical
path. So this aspect of learning which deals with metacog-
nition has been added to the third edition of the Ten Steps
which is coming out in the fall of 2017. In this edition we
talk about first-order and second-order skill acquisition,
and how you design things so that while acquiring the first-
order skill (i.e., the effects with) you also acquire the sec-
ond-order skill (i.e., the effects of). I also wrote an article
about that with Omid Noroozi, Harm Biemans, and Martin
Mulder recently, and multiple strategies for achieving this
(Noroozi, Kirschner, Biemans, & Mulder, 2017).
Coming back to your question, possibly the only princi-
ple or technique from your list that we have not (yet) cap-
tured explicitly or systematically into our book is embod-
ied cognition.
In sum, referring back to my second Holy Trinity, all
the techniques being addressed in this special issue are
for me tools that should be available in the tool box of an
instructional designer, who preferably makes use of a more
13

general heuristic framework when designing instruction,
which could be our 4C/ID model.
How do you see the relationship between instruc-
tional design and cognitive psychology, instructional
psychology, and mathematics education? Is instruc-
tional design science? And do you consider yourself pri-
marily as an instructional designer?
Instructional design is a design science, its like engi-
neering. Its the thoughtful and creative application of
insights from other disciplines. Instructional design should
be the proper application of cognitive science (including
cognitive and educational psychology), just like engineer-
ing should be the proper application of the physical and
material sciences. And, just as, when you have to construct
a bridge, depending upon the shores, the distance between
the shores, the flow of the water, the amount and type of
traffic that has to go across the bridge, and things like that,
there are lots of different bridges that can be built and not a
clear and single best solution. The same holds for instruc-
tional design. That is what you are doing, there is never one
clear way to do it.
I would call myself a master instructional designer
who makes use of evidence-informed cognitive theories.
I would like to emphasize that in the field of instructional
designprobably more than in the related fields of cogni-
tive psychology, educational psychology and mathematics
educationyou find many scholars who make use of false
and/or disproven educational myths, such as the myth
of the existence of learning styles, multiple intelligences,
learning pyramids, and so on.
Concerning the position of mathematics education as a
research field of its own, my answer is clear: Dont waste
your time on accentuating possible subtle and minimal dif-
ferences between mathematics and other disciplines and
focus instead what is general to all kinds of learning. In my
view, this development whereby all these distinct didactic
fields have evolved and declared themselves as research
fields on their own with their own theories of knowledge,
learning and instruction, emphasizing the uniqueness of
their own discipline and neglecting the similarities with
others, has led, in my view, to a great waste of resources in
terms of manpower, time and money.
But is your strong plea against domain specificity in
theory and practice of learning and teaching not com-
pletely at odds with the trend towards domain-specific-
ity that is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the great
accomplishments within the learning sciences since the
1980s?
Thats completely different for me. You cant teach peo-
ple general skills; you can only teach people skills within a
certain domain. Thats the domain-specificity issue. What
I have been arguing all the time is that there is little or no
difference between teaching a person a graphing skill or
13
P.A.Kirschner et al.
estimation skill in mathematics or in economics, psychol-
ogy, sociology, statistics or whatever. So what youre talk-
ing about is absolutely true, namely that we have witnessed
over the past decades a change in focus from domain gener-
ality to domain specificityalthough I would like to point
out thatunfortunatelywith the emergence of the notion
of so-called twenty-first century skills it looks as if the
notion of domain-general skills is back again. So, I agree
with you that weve come a long way and we understand
within the cognitive sciences that you can only learn a skill
within a domain, but that is something completely different
than claiming that learning in mathematics is that much dif-
ferent from learning in economics or whatever domain.
You said before a teacher needs a deep conceptual
understanding of the topics (s)he will teachlets not
say the domain of mathematics as a whole but just the
topics (s)he will teach. He or she will also need a deep
conceptual understanding of instructional tools and
techniques. Can we offer you the following statement:
In order to do good studies on the effectiveness of some
of the principles, a researcher in instructional design
needs a deep conceptual understanding, not only of
those principles but also of the specific topics that are
learned in his research. How would you react to this
statement?
Assume that I, as a cognitive-psychologically based
instructional designer, am designing a new learning envi-
ronment in a particular subdomain of mathematics, I dont
know if I need to have deep conceptual understanding of
the topics to be taught. But of course I will need to have
someone working together with me who does have that
deep conceptual knowledge. And, of course, I will need
some basic knowledge of the (sub)domain in order to make
sure that the communication and cooperation with my part-
ner works well. So, to make it more concrete, a team that
does an investigation, lets say on a certain instructional
design principle such as refutational text, and lets take a
very specific topic such as conditional probability, defini-
tively needs someone in the team who has a deep con-
ceptual understanding of that specific topic of conditional
probability. No doubt about that.
At the end of our introduction, we argue that the
dozen principles that we have included in our special
issue differ from each other in various ways, including
their field of application. A given principle may be more
applicable for a certain type of mathematics learners,
for a certain type of mathematics tasks, for specific
mathematical concepts, and for a certain type of math-
ematical learning contexts or settings. But does this
restriction not seriously jeopardize the value and use-
fulness of instructional design?
My answer is: Yes and no. In my view, a few of the tech-
niques, particularly those that are based on well-established
There ismore variation within thanacross domains: aninterview withPaul A. Kirschner about
cognitive psychological and multimedia principles, have a
wide range of applicability that is hard to put into question.
But this being said, I certainly agree that a given princi-
ple or technique may be more applicable for a certain level
of mathematics learners, for a certain type of mathematics
tasks, for specific mathematical concepts, and for a certain
type of mathematical learning contexts or settings. Actu-
ally, that is exactly what Ive been arguing all along: the
variability within a domain like mathematics is greater than
the variability across domains. That has been my overall
argument throughout this whole interview. Thats why I
have a problem with talking about a pedagogy or didactic
for mathematics.
Overlooking the whole field, do these different prin-
ciples or techniques also differ in your opinion, in terms
of how well proven they are? Are some much more
hypothetical than others in your opinion?
Yes, some are more hypothetical or speculative than
others, I would say, as you have indicated in your introduc-
tion to the special issue. For instance, a technique in the
list that seems a bit more speculative to mealthough I
have to confess that I am not that familiar with that specific
literatureis personalization. I am not sure whether the
need to personalize instructional materials and interven-
tions, to make them personally relevant and authentic for
the learner, is of the same well-documented importance for
(mathematics) education as most of the other ones.
3Conclusion
Looking back at this interview, we realized that Paul A.
Kirschner was an excellent, but at the same time very chal-
lenging, discussant for a special issue of ZDM about applying
cognitive psychology-based instructional design principles
in mathematics teaching and learning. Based on his exper-
tise and given his position in the field, he played his role of a
critical friend in an excellent way, posing serious questions
about major issues that may be often taken for granted within
the mathematics education research community. By provid-
ing his perspective on these issues, Paul A. Kirschner has
opened our mind and made us think. One of the more con-
troversial issues that he raised is certainly his questioning of
the idea of pedagogical content knowledge, arguing that all
that is needed in good instruction is a deep conceptual knowl-
edge of the domain, and of general tools and techniques for
instructional design. Such a stance goes back to the ideas that
were held before Shulman (1986) published his seminal work
on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as one of the seven
categories of professional knowledge required for teaching,
besides content knowledge; general pedagogical knowledge,
curricular knowledge, knowledge of learners, knowledge of
educational contexts, and knowledge of educational aims,
goals and purposes. From this list it was specifically PCK that
has drawn the most attention from mathematics education
researchers and has elicited a lot of research in the field dur-
ing the past decades.
While questioning the idea of PCK, Paul A. Kirschner at
the same time argued that, for instance in teacher education,
future teachers need to be taught in a highly integrated man-
ner. Indeed, in the complex, authentic reality of mathemat-
ics teaching (and similarly that of a mathematics education
researcher), the challenge is to elicit the learning of a specific
topic to a specific group of learners using a range of instruc-
tional tools and techniques with a view to elicit effective,
efficient, and enjoyable learning. According to many col-
leagues active in the field of mathematics (teacher) education
who make intensive and productive use of the PCK concept,
in such a complex and specific practice, general pedagogi-
cal knowledge and deep understanding of the domain come
together in a unique, situated way in PCK. While Paul A.
Kirschner argues that in such a situation only the combination
and integration of available general pedagogical knowledge
and domain knowledge is at stake, PCK researchers would
say that this unique, situated combination of both kinds of
professional knowledge in an authentic and complex practice
is exactly what pedagogical content knowledge is about. So,
is there no such thing as pedagogical content knowledge? Or
is there only pedagogical content knowledge at stake in the
teaching of mathematics? The interview with Paul A. Kirsch-
ner illustrates that scholars working in the same or adjacent
fields may differ in their answers, just like a pessimist will say
the glass of beer is half empty whereas an optimist will say
it is half full. What both would probably agree on is the fact
that in the glass there is room for more beer
As such, we see this interview not as the end of the discus-
sion, but rather as the beginning. And referring back to the
title of the special issue, we look forward to the fruitful dis-
cussions within and across the various research communities.
References
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guid-
ance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of
constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-
based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 46(2), 7586.
Noroozi, O., Kirschner, P. A., Biemans, H., & Mulder, M. (2017). Pro-
moting argumentation competence: Extending from first- to sec-
ond-order scaffolding through adaptive fading. Educational Psy-
chology Review (online).
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand, knowledge growth in
teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 414.
Van Merrinboer, J. J. G., & Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Ten steps to
complex learning (third edition). New York: Taylor & Francis.
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