What is Instructional Design?
By Monica DeTure, Ph.D.

Instructional design . . . You’ve heard the term used at workshops, seminars, and conferences.  Many colleges of education offer a major in it.  It even forms the core part of the title “The Applied Center of Instructional Design.”  But what does “instructional design” actually mean?  And how can understanding this term positively influence your teaching?

In technical terms, instructional design is a systematic approach to the development of instructional programs which takes into account learning theory and research in order to ensure that the intended learning aims are realized.  In less technical terms, instructional design is an organized way of planning successful learning experiences for your students.

Instructional design is a system that includes needs assessment, learner analysis, content goals and objectives, teaching and learning strategies, assessment, and course evaluation/revision. Each of these components should be analyzed carefully so that the system works properly. The system is not linear. Components may be analyzed and modified in any order as long as all the components are taken into consideration during the modification.

Needs assessment is often the starting point for instructional designers since this is the process that helps one determine what should be taught in the course.  A need is defined as a discrepancy between a desired state and the current state. Therefore, if we want students to be able to perform a task, and they currently are unable to do so, there is an instructional need.

Learner analysis is done in order to gain an understanding of the instructional audience. Prerequisite knowledge and skills can be determined with a diagnostic assessment. Information on students’ personal interests and career goals may be obtained informally in conversation or with a survey. Information on students’ motivation levels may also be gained from informal questions, especially the reason why students enrolled in the course.  Having this kind of information allows instructors to personalize instruction by giving examples that are relevant to student interests and career goals. Furthermore, this type of relevance in instruction has been proven to increase student motivation.

Another area of learner analysis is the field of cognitive styles or learning styles. Many styles have been identified and researched, including Field-dependence/Field-independence, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, analytic vs. global, the Meyers-Briggs type indicator, and Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory. Although it is not always feasible to administer style tests and teach specifically to styles, it is important to have an understanding of the broad range of learning styles and to design teaching and learning activities that reach all learners.

An additional component of instructional design involves content goals and objectives.  A goal is a general learning aim while an objective is a very specific learning aim which defines the audience, behavior, condition, and degree.  Content goals and objectives are formulated prior to instruction so that all involved parties know what is expected of them up front. Communicating clear objectives helps students by providing focus and relieving anxiety over the unknown. It also helps instructors to ensure that what is being taught reflects what was needed and also what will be tested.

Teaching strategies and learning activities should ideally be correlated directly to objectives, should allow student interaction with content, instructor, and peers, should engage differing learning styles and intelligences, and should allow for distributed practice.  Examples of teaching strategies include direct instruction, mastery learning, and cooperative learning.  Examples of learning activities include case studies, simulations and games, and drill and practice. 

Assessment, another critical component of instructional design, is accomplished in three phases. Diagnostic assessments are done at the beginning of the course as part of the learner analysis. These assessments take the form of pre-tests or informal survey items.  Throughout the course, instructors use formative assessment to measure student progress toward the objectives. These assessments need to provide timely feedback for students so that errors can be corrected before they are practiced repeatedly.  At the end of the course, instructors use summative assessment to determine students’ final performance in relation to the objectives.

 Assessments may be norm-referenced, which means that student performance is compared to other students’ performance as with a bell curve, or they may be criterion-referenced, which means that student performance is compared to predetermined criteria as with a checklist or rubric.  Instructional designers are also interested in test validity and reliability. Validity is a measure of whether or not the test measures the objectives accurately while reliability is a measure of whether the test provides consistent results over time with different student samples.

Lastly, course evaluation and revision are very important to instructional designers. Student evaluations and instructor observations bring attention to weak or confusing areas of the course. It is important to remember that a course is an instructional system which may need to be “tweaked” to run well.

So the next time you are at a workshop and hear the term “instructional design” or see those words embedded in the title “The Applied Center for Instructional Design,” you’ll know that instructional design is a systematic approach to teaching that takes into account such important variables as needs assessment, learner analysis, content goals and objectives, teaching and learning strategies, assessment, and course evaluation/revision.  Understanding the principles of instructional design can really strengthen the quality of your teaching.