"Several people who have written about the process of theory construction have advocated the use of paradigms or metatheories as useful for providing a framework within which to build one's theory (e.g., Snelbecker, 1974; Snow, 1971), and such frameworks can be very useful for both understanding and evaluating a theory or model as well." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 14) Snelbecker - paradigm Snow - metatheory Reigeluth - "For our purposes, we use the term framework as synonymous with both paradigm and metatheory."
A conceptual framework of learning on which domain-specific, individualized, theories of learning can be constructed.