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Article on Information
Design
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models | processes |
Although the four components of decision making and other observations emerged from a study of the process for developing museum exhibits, they have possible implications to instructional designers:
Consequently, further research is needed. In the next several sections, I address each of these points.
Instructional systems design models emerge from theory, not practice (Gustafson, 1991). Wedman and Tessmer note that, because models of instructional systems design are prescriptive and primarily theoretical, few designers actually follow them in their entirety (1993). Wedman and Tessmer’s study confirms a 1987 study by Zemke and Lee.
In contrast, this model emerges from practice and transfers nicely to the design of instructional materials other than museum exhibitions. Consider each of the components:
For those of us designing instructional materials used in business, additional goals include:
The study also indicated that planning--what instructional designers refer to as needs analysis and course design--is actually a separate, though related, series of design steps from development. In museum exhibits, the planning process ends when the team submits the plans for an exhibition to a funding agency. When funds are approved, implementation begins. Although such a division of planning and implementation is not widespread among instructional designers, it is growing (Foshay, 1997).
Similarly, this study suggested that the person who plans an exhibition is often different from the person who implements the plans. Although this is not necessarily a widespread practice in instructional design, Gery recommends such a division of responsibilities when developing one type of instructional program: electronic performance support systems. She refers to the idea generator as the architect and the implementer as the project manager (1991).
This switch in roles leads to the second implication of this study to instructional designers: the composition of project teams. That the person who generates the plan for an exhibition is often different than the person who implements the plans is consistent with suggestions of design teams for electronic performance support projects. Gery proposes that an "architect" is responsible for designing these projects and a project manager is responsible for making sure that the designs are implemented in specific modules (Gery, 1991).
This study also suggests that certain project roles are "core" and others are "peripheral." Perhaps similar distinctions can be made on instructional design and electronic performance support projects. For example, as video producers played a peripheral role in the development of the three exhibitions studied, so they often play a peripheral role in multimedia projects. Although their early involvement is essential to fully integrating the video elements into the project, video producers only develop a part of a project. They are not given, nor do they take, a holistic view of such projects. Similarly, roles on our instructional projects might not be equal.
When we design instructional programs, we intend for learners acquire new skills. To ensure that happens, we base our programs on well-defined, observable learning objectives and have formal evaluation plans to determine whether learners actually developed the skills. Most of our instructional programs are also targeted to specific audiences, who share several similarities, such as similar educational backgrounds, ages, or experience levels.
In contrast, informal, object-based programs are intended to change the feelings and beliefs of participants. Although pleased when visitors remember specific facts from exhibitions, exhibit design teams feel all the sophisticated education work we do is based on the assumption that the visitor will feel good about themselves when they are in the place (Bloom, quoted in Behr, 1989).
Exhibit design teams believe that they achieve their goals when visitors change their impressions about a subject as a result of seeing an exhibition.
The encounter with a real, concrete object from a different world--an exotic animal, a strange dress, a beautiful artifact--is the kernel from which...learning [grows]. For [those] with an already developed curiosity about some field, such as zoology, anthropology, or art, the museum...is a place where information [loses] its abstractness and becomes concrete. (Csikzentmihalyi & Hermanson, 1995, p. 35)
Exhibit design teams believe that they succeed when they provoke thought and change beliefs; they do not target what which specific thoughts or beliefs should be changed. That choice is left to the visitor.
Furthermore, informal educational programs like museum exhibits serve a wide audience that might include visitors ranging in age from 3 to 93, and in experience from no previous knowledge about the topic to being an expert. To ensure that participants develop new beliefs and attitudes, these exhibits--informal educational programs--are designed around broad goals that promote discovery about the content. Designers rely on the reactions of participants to determine whether they have achieved their goals. They also rely on attendance figures to assess the bottom-line success of an exhibition.
We instructional designers bristle at such visceral and seemingly abstract approaches to instructional design. But the approach seems to work for museums and their supporters. Ultimately, we need to acknowledge that the methods and beliefs underlying the design of formal educational programs are fundamentally different than those underlying informal educational programs.
Although other studies have reached the same conclusion, they all recommended that museums should more actively adopt instructional design methodologies (Beer, 1985; Schenck & Shrock, 1990; Soren, 1992) and more concrete approaches to setting objectives and evaluation.
I do not make the same recommendation.
I believe that the approach used by museums meets the unique needs of its environment. Because the audiences for museum exhibits and their needs and motivations are so diverse, defining a single set of learning outcomes for all visitors would be impossible. Furthermore, because visitors can take such varied paths through a single exhibit, no 2 visitors are likely to encounter the same content. Perhaps we might even adopt this visceral approach when designing programs for the affective domain.
How closely does what happens in the process of designing museum exhibit match what happens in the process of designing other types of instructional programs? Although I have suggested a relationship, only a related study could confirm whether or not this model actually applies. If it does apply, we could use the model to better understand our decision making processes and ultimately improve them.
For example, a related study could suggest why certain decisions prescribed by instructional design models are not frequently applied in practice, such as many of the decisions in the needs analysis phase. Similarly, a related study could suggest which decisions are routinely informed by research, which by expert practice, and which by instinct. Such information would help us better understand where additional research might help instructional designers make more effective decisions and which bodies of research are not applied in practice.
Finally, such information aids in the development of tools supporting the instructional design process. The better we understand which decisions instructional designers really make and how we make them, the better that developers can create systems that model our thinking processes--even automating them when appropriate--and, in other instances, guide decision making.
In other words, validating a decision-oriented model of instructional design can help us narrow the gap between prescribed and actual practice. By narrowing that gap, perhaps we can better explain what makes a good instructional program and what makes an instructional program people "wouldn’t stoop to be sick in."
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(c) Copyright. 1998. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.
