Instructional designers define dispositions in varied and divergent ways, with several conflating them with soft skills¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitativer3·q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Participants offered heterogeneous definitions of dispositions, and more than one categorized them as soft skills rather than as the literature defines them. → Jafar Tavakoli 2025
Evidence¶
Jafar Tavakoli 2025¶
Jafar Tavakoli, Marisa Exter, Ankita Kotangale. (2025). Integrating dispositions in instructional design: an exploratory study in higher education. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09762-3
q2 · i? · qualitative · r3
Interview findings (RQ1 definition category): participants defined dispositions variously as soft skills, learning habits, internal mental states, or affective traits; the article notes "He was not the only one to categorize dispositions as soft skills". Only Ava's definition aligned closely with the literature.
"He was not the only one to categorize dispositions as soft skills. Mia also expressed a similar view, stating that dispositions are “the sort of soft skills that people may not focus on as much”."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Higher education instructional designers recognize dispositions as important learning goals in their course designs — related
- Districts defined pilot success differently, making it difficult to set a standard for evaluating product effects on student improvement — related
- Soft skills play an equally important role in education investments and outcomes as cognitive skills
- P(j)BL research conceptualizes CT more often as processes than as dispositions, and many studies define and measure CT inconsistently — related
- School belonging research is marked by definitional ambiguity and terminology confusion, including conflation of belonging with acceptance, inclusion, and participation — related
- The article reports that research terminology such as 'diagnosis' and 'analysis' is used ambiguously and needs more careful definition — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
ids-varied-definitions-of-dispositions |
title |
Instructional designers define dispositions in varied and divergent ways, with several conflating them with soft skills |
description |
Instructional designers define dispositions in varied and divergent ways, with several conflating them with soft skills |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2025 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-18 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — jafar-tavakoli-2025 |
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