She speculates whether part of the underlying problem may be in the definition of instructional design. She re-states the definition most widely accepted that was put forward by Seesl and Richie (1994), where instructional design is defined as the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources of learning. She contrasts this with her preferred definition as conceptualized by Broderick (2001), that emphases transformation through an engagement with an instructional environment and materials that draw on cognition, educational psychology and problem solving. Her characterization of the instructional designer as usually a consultant, who typically applies the ADDIE method and follows up with course materials, tech and pedagogical strategies, including assessment and evaluation development, seems to point to something but this is not elaborated upon. It might be meaningful, in light of her negative comments about instructional design needing to become more than the application of generalized pedagogical truisms across the disciplines.

She traces an arc from the behaviourist theories of Dick et al (2005), Reigeluth & Stein (1983) and others to later social constructivist instructional design, which values how meaningful knowledge is to the learner as crucial to their retention and understanding.  She describes as a flaw, the deliberate disinterest in disciplinary knowledge, at the heart of early instructional design models. The view that subject matter experts - tutors, instructors, lecturers and so on – had little to contribute to learner’s understanding of content is contrasted to Shulman’s theory of PCK. The author strongly argues that to develop effective instructional design instructional designers need to understand pedagogical strategies and learning theory, and have some understanding about the subject matter being taught and the culture of the discipline.

In practice this tension is not unknown among the social constructivist communities of educators and the instructional facilitators who participate in advising and performing on learning activities. An integrated approach with a team expertise supported a disciplinary alignment between pedagogical practices and subject specific practices seems most likely to create  the kind of paradigm shift advocated, perhaps surprisingly in the context of this article, by Reigeluth (1996).