An Interactive Introduction to Instructional Design for Professional Communicators

By Saul Carliner | STC Fellow

Because most technical communicators have participated in instructional programs—whether as students in degree programs, participants in training and continuing education programs, or both—we may feel that we have an intuitive understanding of instructional design, even if we might not be able to precisely state what it is or how it works. This introduction to instructional design tries to leverage that intuitive understanding through an interactive format.

First, this article asks you some questions about instructional design. Then, it identifies the correct responses to each question. It closes by suggesting where you start this journey of learning about instructional design, based on your responses to the questions.

Part 1. Answer these questions.

Answer the following questions to assess your intuitive knowledge of instructional design.

1. What is instructional design?
a. The act of determining how to develop a skill.
b. The process for preparing instructional programs.
c. The act of providing information to users through formats like tutorials and guided tours rather than traditional help.

2. Which of the following words do not belong in an instructional objective?
a. Demonstrate
b. Explain
c. Match
d. Recognize
e. Understand

3. What is an instructional strategy?
a. The plan for developing skills through the program.
b. The plan for presenting content in an instructional program.
c. The plan for using interactivity in the instructional program.

4. Should you use games in instruction?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe

5. When should you write assessment questions for an instructional program?
a. Before identifying instructional objectives for a course.
b. Immediately after identifying instructional objectives for a course.
c. After developing the instructional material.

6. What is the primary reason that learners fail to apply skills learned in an instructional program in their work (or everyday life, if that’s the goal)?
a. They crammed for the test and forgot everything afterward.
b. They did not pay attention to the program.
c. The environment in which they would use the skills does not support them.
d. They resisted the new techniques taught by the program.

7. How were instructional design and technical communication originally related to one another?
a. Both shared a professional organization.
b. Many of the core theories for both fields were formed in the same institution.
c. Many technical communicators also work as instructional designers.

Part 2. Consider your responses.

Now compare your responses with the correct responses to each question.

1. What is instructional design?

Correct response: a. The act of determining how to develop a skill.

Explanation: A skill can be a physical skill in which someone physically performs a task (called a psychomotor skill) but can also refer to an intellectual skill (such as evaluating options) or an affective skill (related to attitude about a situation).

More specifically, instructional design involves a series of decisions including ones about:

• Which skill to develop
• Which knowledge, tasks, and attitudes need to be imparted when developing that skill (a single skill involves all three)
• Which general strategy should be used to teach the skill (such as mastery learning, discovery learning, or case-based learning)
• Sequencing of the events when presenting the material (what’s presented first, what’s presented second, and so forth)
• Which exercises and activities to use to practice skills
• A strategy for assessing mastery of the skill (such as a test or demonstration)
• Strategies for summarizing learning at the end of an instructional event and to promote use of the new skills outside of the classroom

Instructional design also involves being able to explain the rationale for each of these choices.

Instructional design contrasts with the similarly named—but differently focused—instructional systems design (ISD), which refers to the comprehensive process for preparing instructional programs. The best-known and most-generic form of ISD is the Analysis-Design-Development-Implementation-Evaluation (ADDIE) approach, which describes the key activities that occur in this process and the suggested order in which they occur.

The development of skills is the characteristic that distinguishes instructional design from technical communication. Technical communication guides users in performing skills, but without the expectation that users will be able to independently perform that skill. Instruction develops skills with the expectation that learners will eventually perform them independently.

Presenting information as tutorials and guided tours does not on its own guarantee that these materials are instructional. What makes them instructional is that they develop skills and include opportunities to practice and assess the skill. A guided tour merely familiarizes readers with material. Calling material a tutorial does not, on its own, ensure the development of skills.

2. Which of the following words do not belong in an instructional objective?

Correct answer: e. Understand

Explanation: Instructional objectives state the goals that a training program must achieve and the extent to which learners must master those skills. The central part of an objective is a behavior, which states what learners should be able to do after completing the program.

The behavior in an instructional objective must be expressed in observable and measurable terms so that instructors can later assess the extent to which learners mastered those objectives.

Physical skills, such as “move an object using approaches intended to minimize back injury,” can be easily observed. Cognitive (thinking) skills are a bit more difficult to express observably and measurably. People instinctively want to state cognitive skills as “know” or “understand,” but neither knowing nor understanding is observable or measurable.

What can be observed are the uses of knowing and understanding: “comprehend,” “memorize,” “describe, “explain,” and “evaluate.” This, in turn, also suggests ways to better focus the instructional material, because the strategy for teaching someone to merely comprehend a topic is significantly different than teaching someone to evaluate different options related to that particular skill.

3. What is an instructional strategy?

Correct response: a. The plan for developing skills through the program.

Explanation: More specifically, an instructional strategy refers to the general approaches for presenting the material to learners and practicing the emerging skills. An instructional strategy suggests how to introduce the material to learners, how to present the material, how to reinforce and practice the skills taught, and how to conclude the instructional sequence.

Several instructional strategies exist. Each motivates, involves, and supports learners in a unique way. Some strategies involve more interactivity; others convey content more efficiently. Some are inexpensive to develop but involve little interaction; others require more resources but involve more creativity. Some strategies work more easily in certain media than others.

4. Should you use games in instruction?

Correct response: c. Maybe

Explanation: Although some advocates for the use of games in courses suggest that instructional designers design all of their programs around games, research on the effectiveness of games as an instructional tool suggests a bit more cautious approach.

For games to be effective, they must first relate directly to the instruction. Otherwise, the game risks becoming a distraction. For example, assume that a two-day course introduces a general trivia activity into the last half of the first afternoon to inject energy into the classroom. The trivia questions, which examine the performance of National Hockey League teams, has nothing to do with the subject of the program. Learners might like the activity, but when it ends, the instructor essentially tells the learners, “OK, now the fun is over and it’s time to start learning.”

Assuming the game is relevant, it can engage learners. One study found that learners in a game-based version of a course had a higher satisfaction level and higher performance on a post-class quiz than learners in a version of the same course that did not have a game.

But the games must have a novelty factor. Some research on the repeated use of the same game for instructional purposes found that, over time, learners mastered the game and it failed to support additional learning.

In addition, learners often need a certain amount of foundational knowledge to successfully complete some instructional games. A more traditional approach might suit the teaching of the foundational knowledge.

In other words, games—like many instructional techniques—can have a positive impact on learning. But like all other instructional techniques, games, too, have limits to their effectiveness.

5. When should you write assessment questions?

Correct response: b. Immediately after identifying instructional objectives for a course.

Explanation: Instructional design advocates for criterion-referenced instruction, in which all instruction emerges from the objectives. The objectives are also known as the criteria, hence the term.

As noted above, objectives identify the skills worth developing. Assessments measure the extent to which learners mastered the objectives.

Assessments can take many forms. The best known is graded tests, but assessments can also take the form of informal quizzes or self-assessments.

In criterion-referenced instruction, all test questions emerge directly from the objectives. In fact, the action verb in the objective almost always becomes part of the assessment question. For example, if the objective says “Match,” then the test question is a matching question.

Instructional design experts advise writing assessment questions immediately after writing the objectives. As instructional design legend (and chief promoter of instructional objectives) Robert Mager noted, if the objectives indicate the direction in which instruction should go, then the assessment questions indicate whether the learners have arrived at the learning destination.

With an idea of both the destination of instruction and the means of assessing whether learners have arrived there, instructional designers can design and develop instructional materials that guide learners on that journey.

6. What is the primary reason that learners fail to apply skills learned in an instructional program in their work (or everyday life, if that’s the goal)?

Correct response: d. The environment in which they would use the skills does not support them.

Explanation: The only way the new skills developed through an instructional program can have a meaningful impact on their work and lives is when learners actually apply them.

The process by which learners integrate skills developed in an instructional program into their work is called transfer of training. Transfer happens outside of the learning environment.

Learners encounter several types of barriers that prevent them from applying what they learned. In some cases, learners lack the resources to apply the skills. Consider learners who take a program on using a soon-to-be-installed telephone system, but the system is not installed for months after the program. Learners cannot use their new skills, and thus they lose them.

Consider, too, learners who take a program only to have their supervisor or co-worker tell them not to use the new skills because it will disrupt an existing work routine.

Although instructional designers have little—if any—influence over the work environments of their learners, they can prepare learners for these environments and “equip “ learners in the program to overcome these obstacles should they arise later.

7. How were instructional design and technical communication originally related to one another?

Correct responses: a and b. Both shared a professional organization, and many of the core theories for both fields were formed within the same institution.

Explanation: (I did not mean to trick you with two correct answers.)

Technical communication and instructional design have a long-standing relationship that goes back to the mid-twentieth century. The first professional organizations for technical communicators were break-off groups from the American Society for Training Directors (which became the American Society for Training and Development and, more recently, the Association for Talent Development). That explains the professional relationship.

But the two groups share an intellectual relationship as well. On the one hand, researchers in many countries and in many institutions have made significant contributions to technical communication and instructional design. On the other hand, some of the early research in both fields was performed at the same institution: the Washington, DC-based American Institutes for Research (AIR). The work in the two fields was conducted by different teams at different points in time. The instructional design work was conducted between the 1940s and 1960s in support of American military efforts at the time.

Military technology was increasingly sophisticated, the amount of training needed to operate the equipment grew, and the time needed to develop and train personnel could cause a lag in the time between the technology being available and its use in conflict. The research was intended to find ways to design effective instructional programs that could be developed and delivered in the least possible amount of time.

In the 1970s, following moves in various U.S. states and in the United Kingdom in which the public demanded that consumer agreements be written in plain language, then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order requiring that most U.S. federal materials be written in plain language. A different team at the American Institutes for Research prepared the guidelines for document design, guidelines that still influence technical communication today.

Part 3. How familiar are you with instructional design?

If you answered at least six of the seven questions correctly, you have a good familiarity with instructional design.

If you answered four or five questions correctly, you have an emerging familiarity with instructional design.

If you answered three or fewer questions correctly, instructional design offers a learning opportunity for you.

To begin (or continue) your learning about instructional design after reading this special issue, check out the resources in the sidebar.

SAUL CARLINER (saulcarliner@hotmail.com) has a double career in technical communication and instructional design for training. He is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology and Provost’s Fellow for Digital Learning at Concordia University in Montreal, and he teaches the upcoming STC certificate program, Instructional Design for Technical Communicators.