{"id":1054,"date":"2007-01-27T17:13:34","date_gmt":"2007-01-27T17:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/flow-theory-ideas-to-consider\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:04:57","slug":"flow-theory-ideas-to-consider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/flow-theory-ideas-to-consider\/","title":{"rendered":"Flow Theory: Ideas to Consider"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nIn <span>IU<\/span> IST R626, we are analyzing <em>Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience*<\/em>  as it relates to learning and instructional design. For discussion and debate, our prof. broke our group into pro \/ con camps and I am part of &quot;con&quot;. I have been digging into some online resources and (so far) have come up with links to the following:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A. J. Marr (aka Dr. Mezner) &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.homestead.com\/flowstate\/essmezmer.html%20\">http:\/\/www.homestead.com\/flowstate\/essmezmer.html <\/a>and<a href=\"http:\/\/mezmer.blogspot.com\/2004_10_01_archive.html\"> http:\/\/mezmer.blogspot.com\/2004_10_01_archive.html<\/a>\n\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.homestead.com\/flowstate\/files\/zflowlousy.htm\">Flow: An irreverent interpretation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.homestead.com\/flowstate\/files\/mydryart2.html\">Flow: A reverent interpretation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n\t<\/ul>\n<ul>\n\t<\/ul>\n<ul>\n\t<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flowtheory.com\/\">Flow theory.com<\/a>:<br \/>\n\tDissertation site &#8211; an exploration of the importance of website<br \/>\n\tusability from a business perspective &#8211; dissertation pdf linked here <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flowtheory.com\/KTMDissertation.pdf\">http:\/\/www.flowtheory.com\/KTMDissertation.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Donahoe &amp; Palmer<\/li>\n<li>Novak<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n* Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). <em>Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience<\/em>. New York: Harper and Row. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&amp;isbn=0060920432\" class=\"internal\">ISBN 0-06-092043-2<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Reigeluth asserts (in Instructional-Design Theories and Models V.II p.<br \/>\n13), &quot;In contrast to learning theories, instructional-design theories<br \/>\nare more directly and easily applied to educational problems, for they<br \/>\ndescribe specific events outside of the learner that facilitate<br \/>\nlearning (i.e. methods of instruction) rather than describing what goes<br \/>\non inside a learner&#39;s head when learning occurs.&quot; Based on Reigeluth&#39;s statement, I argue that Flow is neither a Learning Theory or an Instructional Theory:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Flow as a Learning Theory:<\/strong> Flow is not a Learning Theory as it does not describe <strong><em>how<\/em> <\/strong>learning<br \/>\n\toccurs or &quot;what goes on inside a learner&#39;s head when learning occurs&quot;.<br \/>\n\tRather, Flow describes a state of being. As defined in Flow on p. 4,<br \/>\n\tFlow is &quot;the state in which people are so involved in an activity that<br \/>\n\tnothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable<br \/>\n\tthat people will do it event at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing<br \/>\n\tit.&quot; However, where is the connection between that state of being and<br \/>\n\tlearning? While a person may be focused and involved, is that person<br \/>\n\t&quot;learning&quot; or is he \/ she just focused on completing a task? In<br \/>\n\taddition, even though, as Ray points out, the required elements to<br \/>\n\tproduce Flow overlap with theories about motivation (namely, Keller&#39;s<br \/>\n\tARCS theory of motivation), it is not clear that motivation is a<br \/>\n\tnecessary condition in learning. In Psychology of Learning for<br \/>\n\tInstruction, Driscoll notes studies in which &quot;learning seemed to occur<br \/>\n\twithout a clear motivation for it&quot; and cites arguments that &quot;motivation<br \/>\n\trelates to the use of knowledge, not the development of it.&quot; (p. 311,<br \/>\n\t2005) Therefore, while a person may become more motivated in a Flow<br \/>\n\tstate, it is not clear how or if that will lead to learning.\n\t<\/li>\n<li><strong>Flow as an Instructional Design Theory:<\/strong><br \/>\n\tFlow is also not an Instructional Design Theory as it does not<br \/>\n\tprescribe instructional methods to apply to educational problems. As<br \/>\n\tnoted above, Flow describes conditions that seem to lead to a state of<br \/>\n\tbeing, but it does not prescribe methods of instruction that facilitate<br \/>\n\tlearning.&nbsp; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- technorati tags begin --><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 10px; text-align: right\">\ntechnorati tags:<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/flow%20theory\">flow theory<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- technorati tags end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In IU IST R626, we are analyzing Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience* as it relates to learning and instructional design. For discussion and debate, our prof. broke our group into pro \/ con camps and I am part of &quot;con&quot;. I have been digging into some online resources and (so far) have come up&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-flow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3083,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/3083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}