Introduction to special issue: International examinations and extensions of the productive disciplinary engagement framework

The four articles collected in this special issue share a common framework, the productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) perspective (Engle & Conant, 2002). This framework was originally developed to support comparisons across instructional design case studies and to evaluate their relative success. Our aim in this special issue is the application of the PDE framework to additional case studies and to further articulate its overlap with other theoretical frameworks (e.g., the joint action theory didactic framework; Sensevy, 2007). Finally, our conclusions based on these additional studies and two commentaries will be drawn so that the strengths and limitations of the PDE framework can be identified and their implications for future research delineated.