Instructional Design: Means to Ensure Effective Learning

By

Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma

In previous issues of this newsletter we briefly mentioned about the importance of instructional design in developing effective learning materials. The instructional design process which we are going to review in this article has relevance in development of both traditional and e-learning materials. Let us look at the instructional design process more closely to learn how it could help design and develop effective learning materials.

What Does Instructional Design Mean?

The term instructional design refers to the systematic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources, and evaluation. An instructional designer is somewhat like an engineer. Both plan their work based on principles that have been successful in the past – the engineer on the laws of science, and the instructional designer on the basic principles of instruction and learning. Both try to design solutions that are not only functional but also attractive or appealing to the end-user. Both the engineer and instructional designer have established problem-solving procedures that they use to guide them in making decisions about their designs.

Through this systematic process both the engineer and instructional designer plan what the solution - often a finished product - will be like. Both write specifications (plans) for the solutions, but they do not necessarily translate their specifications into an actual product. They often hand their plans to someone who specialises in production (in the case of an engineer, a building contractor; in the case of instructional designer, a media production specialist). This holds true for many instructional designers. However, some designers such as those with production skills (computer programming, video production, or development of print materials), may themselves translate their specifications into the final instructional material. Classroom teachers often implement their own plans. In any event, the designer typically begins the production or implementation once specifications are completed.

To understand the term instructional design further, let us review the meanings of the words instruction and design.

What is Instruction?
Instruction is the intentional facilitation of learning towards identified learning goals. In other words it is an intentional arrangement of experiences, leading to learners acquiring particular capabilities. These capabilities can vary qualitatively in form, from simple recall of knowledge to cognitive strategies that allow a learner to find new problems within a field of study.

What is Design?
Many disciplines use the term "design" as part of their title; examples include interior design, architectural design, and industrial design. The term design implies the systematic or intensive planning and generation of ideas prior to the development of something or the execution of some plan in order to solve a problem. Fundamentally, design is a type of problem-solving and has much in common with problem-solving in other professions. Just as the design of the architects benefits from creativity and imagination, so do the designs of the instructional designer. There is a critical need for imagination and ingenuity in all instructional design activities.


The Instructional Design Process
Another way to define instructional design is to describe the process involved in the systematic planning of instruction. At the most basic level, the instructional designer’s job is to answer three major questions:

1. Where are we going? (What are the goals of the instruction?)
2. How will we get there? (What is the instructional strategy and the instructional medium?)
3. How will we know when we have arrived? (What should our tests look like and how will we evaluate and revise the instructional materials?)

These three questions can be stated as major activities that an instructional designer completes during the design and development process:

1. Perform an instructional analysis to determine "where are we are going to."
2. Develop an instructional strategy to determine "how we will get there".
3. Develop and conduct an evaluation to determine "how we will know when we are there."


Instructional Design Models
To answer the above three questions the instructional designer engages in three major activities: i) analysis, ii) strategy development, and iii) evaluation. These three activities are the essence of most instructional design models. Instructional Design Models or ID Models are visualised depictions of the instructional design process, emphasizing the main elements and their relationships.


ADDIE Model

There are more than hundred different ID models, but almost all are based on the generic "ADDIE" model, which stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation, as illustrated in the figure below. Each step has an outcome that feeds the subsequent step.

Analysis --> Design --> Development --> Implementation --> Evaluation

During analysis, the designer acquires a clear understanding of the "gaps" between the desired outcomes or behaviours, and the target group's existing knowledge and skills. The design phase documents specific learning objectives, assessment instruments, exercises, and content. The actual creation of learning materials is completed in the development phase. During implementation, these materials are delivered or distributed to the target student group. After delivery, the effectiveness of the training materials is evaluated.

Different Phases in the ADDIE Model

As we have sufficiently explored the overall instructional design process, it would now be appropriate to look at each of the five phases in detail. However, due to limited space, we will review only the Analysis phase here. Analysis is the first and one of the most important phases in the instructional design process. The outcome or findings of the Analysis phase serve as the basis for designing instructions. Incomplete analysis or absence of it could lead to poor design of instruction and thereby to failure in achieving expected learning outcomes.

Analysis or Instructional Analysis phase consists of three components. They are: i) analysis of learning context, ii) analysis of learner, and iii) analysis of the learning task (task analysis).
The learning context analysis consists of two steps: identification of the gaps in the achievement of learning outcomes (needs assessment or needs analysis), and identification of the environment under which learning occurs (learning environment).

The second component of the instructional analysis, the learner analysis, is concerned with the learner characteristics that may have implications for the design of instructions.
The third and the final component of the analysis is the learning task analysis. This deals with a detailed and hierarchical breakdown of the learning task to identify the underlying learning objectives and prerequisite knowledge.

Use of the Findings of the Analysis Phase

Combined results of the analyses under these three components provide a basis for designing instructional strategies. According to many educationists, although this analytical approach (of instructional analysis) is well-established, there is a general concern that insufficient time is spent in the analysis of the learning task prior to the design stage. This has resulted in production of large amounts of instructions that do not meet the needs of the target learner groups thus making such instructions useless and ineffective.

The findings of the learning context and learner analyses need to be closely reviewed and their design implications need to be properly identified. That is, the instructional designer needs to incorporate necessary elements or features in his or her design to address the learner concerns identified in the above analyses.

For example, if the learners have difficulties in understanding the written text due to the lack of English language competencies, additional instructional support can be provided by giving them audio tapes which explain the subject matter more clearly. If the learners are a group of distance learners who are concerned with insufficient human tutor support and lack of feedback, an appropriately designed computer-based interactive tutorial can be provided to alleviate their concerns. Further, if the analyses revealed that the majority of the learners do not possess the prerequisite knowledge required for understanding the current lesson, access to optional supplementary material covering the prerequisite knowledge should be provided.


Designer's Imagination and Ingenuity

Access to supplementary materials can be provided by simply placing the related texts in the student library or through a link to another section in a CD-ROM based tutorial or to a web page in case of a web-based learning environment. Often instructional designers are tempted to select or develop computer-aided learning material as a solution to the learning problems. Such decisions should be based on carefully reviewed findings of the instructional analysis, e.g. the learners’ desire to use such medium, their access to and affordability of computers, specific advantages in presenting the learning content as a computer-based material, say, for better visualisation, learner interaction, etc.

The instructional designer's imagination and ingenuity has a great role to play here. Once the instructional needs have been duly identified through the Analysis phase, it is up to the designer to design learning activities, drills and practices, provision of feedbacks and assessments, etc. in the most creative way to engage the learner in the learning process and to make him or her interact with the learning material enthusiastically.


Task Analysis

The third component of the instructional analysis, the task analysis, lays the real foundation for designing instruction. The task analysis breaks down the final objective or the desired learning outcome of a lesson in to a hierarchy of enabling objectives (sub objectives) which the learners need to acquire in order to achieve the desired learning outcome of the lesson. Therefore, the actual design of the instruction needs to be fundamentally based on this hierarchical analysis of the learning objectives. The findings of the other two components of the instructional analysis (learning context and learner analyses) provide useful information to make the design more effective through selection of appropriate medium of delivery, setting the level of lesson complexity, type and level of language to be used, the extent of audio/video clips to be used, etc.

The foregoing discussion demonstrates the high level of importance of the Analysis phase in the instructional design process. The effectiveness of an instruction is highly dependent on the extent and accuracy of the instructional analysis carried out prior to its designing.

The actual Design phase and other three remaining phases of the instructional design process, namely, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation will be the subject of another article.


References:

Andrews, D. H. and Goodson, L. A. (1980). A comparative analysis of models of instructional design, Journal of Instructional Development, 3(4), pg. 2-16

Gagne, R. M., Briggs, L. J., Wager, W. W. (1992). Principles of Instructional Design, 4^th edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, New York

Rothwell, W. J., and Kazanas H.C. (2004), Mastering the Instructional Design Process, Pfeiffer, San Francisco

Smith, P. L. and Ragan, T. J. (1999). Instructional Design (2^nd edition), John Wiley & sons, Inc., New York.

About the author:

Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma, a former Senior Lecturer at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), holds a PhD from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand in Instructional Design for Computer-Based Learning. He can be contacted through email: gamini_pad@hotmail.com