In terms of ontology, the Burnard (2008) study (Sample Study 1.2) exemplifies the
constructivist paradigm in a number of ways. First, the researcher allowed the concepts
of importance in the study to emerge as they had been constructed by the participants.
Rather than studying the implementation of a defined curriculum or pedagogical
approach, she studied pedagogical practices used to engage disaffected youth not as she
conceptualized them but, rather, as they were constructed by the teachers in the study. She
asked the question, “How [do] music teachers working with disengaged students—whose
difficulties with learning in school are expressed through disruption, disengagement and