Instructional design expertise: A cognitive model of design

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of problem solving in the domain of instructional design. The study was conducted in two phases: Phase 1 consisted of a “think-aloud” design task with nine instructional designers, five experts and four novices. The results of Phase 2 are reported in this paper. The design task consisted of presenting the subjects with a description of a fictitious piece of equipment (a simulation of a diesel Cummins engine) and audio and video taping the participants while they produced a lesson for training subjects to trouble shoot a diesel engine simulator. Protocols were then coded using a coding scheme adapted from the work of Greeno et al. (1990). This coding scheme considers three aspects of the problem solving process involved in the development of training: subproblems, types of knowledge used, and problem solving operators. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the “think aloud” protocols yielded a picture of common problem solving strategies and general features used by “experts” and “novices” during the design process. More importantly, the data showed that experts and novices use divergent design models. These design models differ with respect to the problem solving strategies used by the experts and novices. Experts are more apt to use more design principles and rely on a variety of knowledge sources than novices. Experts spend more time in frontend-analysis or planning and trying to understand the domain than novices, while novices immediately begin to consider in detail numerous design strategies. Expert design models can be characterized by breadth first with considerable elaboration between interconnections while novices' design models are depth first processing with few interconnecting linkages. Moreover, the expert design model is one of integrating, reiterating and cycling through the design process. The expert design process is not a deterministic linear activity, but rather an iterative activity that requires creativity as well as logic.