최근 구성주의 학습이론은 교육패러다임의 변화를 이론적으로 대변해 주고 실천적 대안을 제시해 줄 수 있는 교육에 있어서의 포스트모더니즘이라고도 불리며 객관주의에 상대되는 의미로 사용되기도 한다. 정보화 사회의 교육적 패러다임은 학습자 중심이다. 구성주의는 그러한 패러다임과 맥을 같이 함으로써 현재는 컴퓨터이용학습, 게임 기반학습, 교육용게임설계 등에 이론적 배경과 그 실천적 방안을 제시해주는 학습이론으로써 각광을 받고 있어 재미와 함께 교육성을 강조하는 교육용게임디자인연구에서도 연구가 필요하다. 이러한 구성주의 학습 이론을 고찰하고 사례를 살펴 결론적으로 시사점을 정리하여 체계적이고 교육성 있는 교육용 게임 디자인 연구 및 기획에 참고가 되고자 한다.

Constructivism is defined in a variety of ways (e.g., constructivist research paradigm, sociological constructivism, and philosophical constructivism) and applied in vastly different contexts. Among the various usages and interpretations of constructivism, one is educational constructivism that embodies an epistemological view of knowledge and learning that is an alternative to naive empiricism or classical behaviorism. To represent the full range of stances taken by educational constructivists, three versions of educational constructivism were considered in this study: individual constructivism originating in the work of Piaget, the radical version of constructivism associated with von Glasersfeld, and the social constructivism of Vygotsky. I investigated preservice teachers' meaning construction about constructivist epistemology as they went through their preservice teacher education program using in-depth interviews. This preservice teacher education program employs constructivist aspects of teacher education and generates applications of constructivism to the practice of teaching. Features of preservice teachers' internalized meanings of educational constructivism include: (1)traditional pedagogy as the default, (2) Literal interpretation of constructivism, (3) Individual constructivism as conceptual change learning, (4) Radical constructivism as a strong individualistic philosophy, (5) Social constructivism as being too ideal to be practical. A compilation of the teachers' own statements about how to implement conceptual change learning and their projected role as constructivist teacher is also provided.