Instructional Systems Design

Instructional design (ID), or instructional systems design (ISD), is the practice of creating "instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing." The process consists broadly of determining the state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition. The outcome of this instruction may be directly observable and scientifically measured or completely hidden and assumed. There are many instructional design models but many are based on the ADDIE model with the five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. As a field, instructional design is historically and traditionally rooted in cognitive and behavioral psychology, though recently constructivism has influenced thinking in the field.

During World War II, a considerable amount of training materials for the military were developed based on the principles of instruction, learning, and human behavior. Tests for assessing a learner’s abilities were used to screen candidates for the training programs. After the success of military training, psychologists began to view training as a system, and developed various analysis, design, and evaluation procedures. In 1946, Edgar Dale outlined a hierarchy of instructional methods, organized intuitively by their concreteness.

B. F. Skinner's 1954 article “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching” suggested that effective instructional materials, called programmed instructional materials, should include small steps, frequent questions, and immediate feedback; and should allow self-pacing.Robert F. Mager popularized the use of learning objectives with his 1962 article “Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction”. The article describes how to write objectives including desired behavior, learning condition, and assessment. In 1956, a committee led by Benjamin Bloom published an influential taxonomy with three domains of learning: cognitive (what one knows or thinks), psychomotor (what one does, physically) and affective (what one feels, or what attitudes one has). These taxonomies still influence the design of instruction.

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