A New Look at Instructional Design. Part II. Instruction: Integrating One's Approach

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is a continuation of an earlier paper published in the British Journal of Educational Technology (Romiszowski, 1981a) which dealt with the basic concepts concerning the learning process that should be used as a starting point for the instructional design process. The present paper deals with the instructional decisions that should be taken at the overall, or ?acro', design state. This is approximately equivalent to curriculum development. It shows how the person making these decisions should keep in mind the basic concepts presented in the earlier part of the paper and presents a series of schemata or ‘job aids’ to the decision‐making process. These schemata are not rigid procedures to be followed, but are rather a visual representation of the factors to be considered in taking instructional decisions, and the interrelationships that exist between these factors. Selection schemata are built up for the selection of overall instructional strategies, for the selection of specific methods, for the organization of group size and structure and for the selection of presentation media. Finally, all these separate decisions are brought together into an overall ‘instructional plan’—a visual representation of the proposed system's structure, which can act as a planning and control tool for subsequent stages of development and implementation.Both the papers are an adaptation of certain sections of the book Designing Instructional Systems, written by the author and published by Kogan Page Ltd (Romiszowski, 1981b). This book deals in much greater detail with all the decisions that are taken during curriculum development, or instructional systems design. The book adopts a systems approach in five basic stages—problem definition, analysis, selection and development of an appropriate solution, implementation and evaluation—and deals exhaustively with the first three of these stages. A companion volume, currently in press (Producing and Implementing Instruction) completes the treatment of the last two stages. Both the books are planned on a multi‐level system, enabling the reader to select only the chapters that present a theoretical basis for instructional design, or alternatively, to select only those chapters that act as a manual or handbook to the practical tasks performed by the instructional designer. They are amply illustrated with practical examples drawn from the educational and the training, sectors, including case studies from both the developed and the developing nations.