Designing databases as tools for higher-level learning: Insights from instructional systems design

Abstract

This article reports on a naturalistic study of online and CD-ROM databases to identify design characteristics that are important to high school students' use of these information resources for higher-level learning as well as for information access and retrieval. Primary data collection techniques were interactive observations of 92 students and informal interviews with 54 students, 4 teachers, and the school library media specialist. The article presents an inventory of specific problems students experienced while using 7 CD-ROM and 18 online databases and discusses implications for database design based on the study results. By showing how the lens of instructional systems design can be applied to the study of a specific information technology, this article provides a new perspective on database design and suggests how electronic information resources can be designed to promote higher-level learning through enhancing students' opportunities to process, evaluate, and apply the information they retrieve from these resources.