My goal here is to address the question, “What is an instructional designer?” To many, the field of instructional design is ambiguous. I aim to discuss a basic history of the field of instructional design, the current trends, and the roles instructional designers have today in order to demonstrate what this field addresses and what instructional designers do.
My degree is in Instructional Psychology and Technology. This degree is a blending of two movements: one in instructional media and the other in instructional design. Instructional media concerns itself with the design and effective use of technologies that improve and make possible different kinds of instruction. Interest in instructional media grew in the early 1900s when schools began collecting charts, slides, photographs, films and other material to complement school instruction. Understanding how to use and create effective media became a part of this movement, especially during World War II, when the U.S. military sought to design films to successfully train personnel. It is quite possible that the effective use of these films gave the United States an important advantage in the war. In the 1950s, instructional media attention turned to television and computers. Instructional television gained widespread support for a time, and then faded. The use of computers to deliver instruction, on the other hand, had a slow start but a more lasting effect. The internet has helped the computer have a greater impact as an instructional medium. Today, great work is put into online education, which expands the boundaries of the classroom, providing education in a more flexible and accessible way.
Instructional design, on the other hand, is concerned with how to effectively design instruction to achieve desired goals. Like instructional media, instructional design has its important roots in the military training films of World War II. During this time, the military brought in psychologists and educators to design training based on research to increase effectiveness of military instruction. These researchers were also used to develop assessment instruments to help pair the strengths and talents of trainees with appropriate roles. After the war, research continued on developing principles to help guide the effective design of instruction. Programmed instruction presented the principles of small steps, consistent positive reinforcement, and self-pacing to help guide the design of effective instruction. Robert Gagné developed the idea that effective learning happened in steps, beginning with getting attention to reinforcing what was learned. These steps are known as the Nine Events of Instruction. In the 1960s, emphasis was placed on evaluating instruction, which led to trying out instruction on learners to determine if the design achieved its goals.
Eventually, this work built up to a systematic way of designing instruction. One of the most popular models of this system is the ADDIE model (Assess, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate). While this model has been a long-time standard in the field, others have tried to develop other systems to handle the more complex tasks of designing computer-based instructional material. One model gaining traction today is Andy Gibbon’s layers model, which looks at instructional design much like the blueprints of a building, where certain experts have domain over parts of design and construction, like framers, plumbers, electricians, and interior designers. Domain experts in modern instructional design would include experts in content, pedagogy, data base management, software development, and graphical design. This perspective on design encourages expertise in specific domains as well as developing a design system where one layer can be manipulated without great expense to the workings of the other layers. Instructional designers often take the role of managing the work of all these experts as well as being the expert on instructional strategies. The work of instructional designers continues to evolve alongside the development of instructional media, learning and teaching strategies, and design systems.
My interests lie in the expanding and quickly evolving field of online education. As mentioned earlier, online education makes education more accessible and flexible. I have taken several online classes in my master’s program at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Students were attending class from Idaho to Greenland. We participated in asynchronous discussion led by our instructor. I have also designed my own courses as a freshman composition instructor to take greater advantage of computer and Internet technologies. The Internet allows us to do much of the content learning at home, allowing class time to be used for practice and workshops. Students have found this hands-on form of instruction to be very valuable and helpful to their learning.
Researchers and designers have come to the consensus that online instruction cannot simply be a transfer of traditional face-to-face instruction to the internet. Nor should it be that way. As we seek to improve education, online education has caused us to rethink learning and instruction in productive and exciting ways. I hope to conduct further research in this area, specifically with how to blend online education with traditional formats. These methods provide different strengths, the blending of which have produced more effective learning than with either method alone. Research is needed to identify what is causing these blended methods to work so well. I hope to help identify these causes and work on developing theories that can guide the effective design of future blended instructional experiences.
For more on this subject, see Robert A. Reiser's "A History of Instructional Design and Technology," in Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd Ed.), Pearson, 2012.
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