Estimated reading time: 25 minutes.
make_videos.py or record and embed your own.)Instructional design is the systematic process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, resources, and evaluation. Three words in that definition carry most of the weight:
Instructional design is also a profession with its own standards. The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI) publishes competencies for instructional designers organized around professional foundations, planning and analysis, design and development, evaluation and implementation, and management. Keep those five areas in mind; this course visits each.
The field has three roots that still shape it.
Military and industrial training (1940s onward). During the Second World War, psychologists including Robert Gagné were asked to train large numbers of people quickly and reliably on complex equipment. They developed task analysis, criterion-referenced testing, and the practice of specifying objectives before building instruction. The systems approach that emerged, in which instruction is a set of interacting components engineered toward a measurable outcome, is the ancestor of every ID model you will study.
Behavioral and cognitive psychology (1950s to 1980s). Skinner's programmed instruction contributed small steps, active responding, and immediate feedback. Mager's Preparing Instructional Objectives (1962) gave designers a format for writing measurable objectives. Gagné's Conditions of Learning (1965) argued that different types of learning outcomes require different instructional conditions, and his nine events of instruction became the most widely used lesson framework in the field. Cognitive psychology later reframed learning as the construction of mental models and drew attention to working memory limits, prior knowledge, and transfer.
Constructivism and learning sciences (1990s onward). Constructivist critiques argued that the systems approach could produce sterile, decontextualized instruction. Situated learning, problem-based learning, cognitive apprenticeship, and learner-centered design pushed the field toward authentic tasks, collaboration, and reflection. The learning sciences added design-based research and a closer partnership with cognitive science. Contemporary ID draws on all three roots and argues about their balance.
The most durable idea in ID is that instruction is a system: a set of components (learners, content, methods, media, environment, assessment) whose interactions determine the outcome. Change one component and the others shift. Add a video and you change the cognitive load; move a course online and you change the social presence; shorten the practice and you change retention.
Two consequences follow. First, analysis comes before design because you cannot engineer a system you have not described. Second, evaluation is part of the system, not an afterthought; every ID model closes the loop with data.
A typical project involves:
Teachers design instruction every day. What distinguishes ID as a discipline is the explicitness and the systems view: objectives are written, assessments are aligned before activities are chosen, and the design is documented so others can implement and evaluate it. Many teachers find that learning ID makes their tacit expertise visible, and that visibility is what makes it improvable.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Instructional design | Systematic process of planning instruction from analysis through evaluation |
| Systems approach | Treating instruction as interacting components engineered toward a measurable outcome |
| Needs assessment | Determining whether a performance gap exists and whether instruction can close it |
| Front-end analysis | Learner, context, and task analysis conducted before design |
| Criterion-referenced assessment | Measuring performance against a standard rather than against other learners |
| Formative evaluation | Evaluation during development to improve the instruction |
| Summative evaluation | Evaluation after implementation to judge effectiveness |
Before the next page, write one paragraph answering: what would go wrong in a project that skipped needs assessment and front-end analysis and went straight to building a course? Use a real or plausible example. Bring it to the discussion.
Gagne, R. M. (1965). The conditions of learning. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Mager, R. F. (1962). Preparing instructional objectives. Fearon.
Reiser, R. A. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(2), 57–67.
Richey, R. C., Fields, D. C., & Foxon, M. (2001). Instructional design competencies: The standards (3rd ed.). ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology.