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INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEMS DESIGN

Island MultiMedia and its Associates have extensive expertise and experience in the application of Instructional
Systems Design procedures and approaches to performance problems. The rigor and productivity of the ISD approach,
when correctly and appropriately applied, ensure results, control costs and reduce risk. ISD as a discipline is the central
content of many graduate degrees, but some of its roots and essential characteristics are outlined in the following article.
Island MultiMedia Associates have been primary contributors to several of the most successful of the major ISD
models.
AN INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEMS DESIGN,
O'Neal, A.F., Fairweather, P.G., and Huh Y.H.
ILO Asian and Pacific Skills Development Program
United Nations, Goa, India, 1988.

Historically, instructional development has tended to be an artistic endeavor, carried out in a cottage industry setting
(Molnar, 1971). All aspects of development responsibility including analysis of the training or educational problem,
design of the instruction, development of the materials, and in many cases, production of the media, evaluation, and
revision were concentrated in the individual instructional developer. The developer's approach to each instructional
problem tended to be ad hoc and subjective. The developer himself, more often than not, tended to have expertise in the
subject matter being addressed, rather than formal training in instructional design science.
This model of the Renaissance man as instructional artist, solving each training problem as it arose with a combination
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of experience, intuition, and personal insight, began to become suspect as instructional development activities grew
larger and more complex and as the consequences of inadequate training grew more and more expensive. Figure 1
represents three points on a continuum of instructional development methodology. The artistic-intuitive approach, with
its dependence on the judgement and multi-disciplinary skills of the individual developer gradually has yielded to more
systematic approaches to the design and development of instruction and training systems and materials.
As shown on the figure, the search for better and more systematic ways to handle instructional problems led to the
development of some important tools, including task analysis, the use of well defined behavioral objectives, and
sophisticated measurement and evaluation methods. To protect against the consequences of poor training, more reliance
was placed on empirical methods, which involved repeated tryout and revision of materials (Merrill & Boutwell, 1973).
This stage in the evolution of a technology of instructional design is represented by the empirical phase of Figure 1.



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Although these methods were expensive and time-consuming, they did at least help pinpoint inadequate instructional
segments and make possible the improvement of instructional effectiveness. However, once inadequate segments were
identified, the job of revision of the instructional materials was generally still left to the Renaissance man. His activities
were still basically artistic in nature, his solutions to instructional problems were still idiosyncratic, and the procedures
that he might apply tended to be based on his own experience and were often not generalizable to other developers.
Notice from the figure that analyzing the results of the training could lead to changes in the experience and intuition of
the developer as well as, hopefully, to the improvement of the instructional product through revision. In this mode, if the
project had unlimited time and money, and could afford to iterate enough times, very good training might eventually
emerge. Unfortunately, in the real world, there never seems to be enough time or money. There was clearly a need for
further evolution of instructional design and development procedures.
In the early 1970's a growing trend began in training circles away from this artistic approach to development, and
towards the rigorous application of theory- and research-based models in an instructional engineering approach to
development of instructional programs. This class of procedures has been variously called instructional systems design
or development (ISD), as a systems approach to training (SAT), or by other such designations. As shown in Figure 1, the
approach allows for inputs from experience, intuition, and most importantly, from research.
Notice that an important aspect of the systematic model is the formulation of different levels of definition of practice.
First, scientists synthesize principles from learning research and the experience and intuition of expert training
practitioners. These principles represent high level abstract generalizations such as "Distributed practice is superior to
massed practice in long term skills maintenance", and "Increasing imagery improves retention". They should be
observable in training practice and supported by research findings. However, at this level of abstraction they offer little
guidance to the instructional designer.
The high level principles must be documented and developed into operational procedures. These procedures are
designed to be applied by technicians to generate instructional products. Again results are analyzed and may lead to
improvements in the product, changes in the experience and intuition of the practitioners, or they may indicate the need
for further research. Most important of all, however, these results may lead to improvements in the procedures, leading
to better practice!


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to better practice!
Figure 2 shows a simplified view of the ISD process. It starts with the analysis of the problem, the context, and the
intended learner population. The analysis products (such as the job/task analysis, the entry population analysis, the
needs/goals/constraints analysis, etc) provide inputs to the design phase of the project. Here the learning objectives are
refined, the training media specified, the syllabus is generated, and the individual lesson designs are specified. The
design documents form the basis for the development phase, and the implementation and evaluation phases are carried
out based on the evaluation and implementation plans developed in the analysis and design phases. Notice that
evaluation in a systematic model of development has a quality control aspect. Since the process proceeds according to
well specified and documented procedures, with well defined products at each stage, it is possible to evaluate the
emerging training product at each step, detecting problems as they emerge, instead of discovering them much later, in a
training product which doesn't work.



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Most large scale approaches will be similar at this general level. Many will recognize that at this level, ISD is nothing


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more than the application of well proven systems development techniques to the problem of training development. At
finer levels of detail, where the individual procedures are defined, strong institutional, and even personal influences, may
be clearly evident in different ISD models. Traditions and philosophies of ISD practice may often be clearly traced by
such distinctive characteristics (Gibbons 1988). It is, however, at this finer level of detail where the real benefits of ISD
begin to emerge.
When closely examined, good ISD is more engineering than art. Its important benefits come from well documented
procedures, a differentiated staff team development approach, separation of instructional content and strategy, and the
continuing evolution of a prescriptive, analytical, research-based model.
In order for teams of specialists to work efficiently and effectively together, procedures must be well documented at
all levels of the ISD process. Documented procedures allow for peer review, process control, and the possibility for
improving practice over time. They help to standardize the output of different team members doing the same task and
they help alleviate the training burden imposed by new team members arriving during the project. They serve as quality
control as well as development tools. While documentation has long been an essential ingredient of systems design in
general, it has extreme value in ISD in particular.
An essential ingredient in any large scale instructional development activity is the development of some form of team
organization where specialized expertise can be most effectively utilized and where personnel training problems can be
minimized through specialization. This tends to result in an industrial revolution, or factory approach to instructional
development. Major areas of specialization include (but are not limited to) instructional content (subject matter experts),
instructional process (instructional designers), and media technicians.
One of the most important contributions of ISD is the separation of content and strategy. Content is described in
terms of well defined and documented, discrete instructional components. Strategies are defined in terms of well
specified sequences of these components set in the context of the particular media selected for each instructional
module. This approach has particular value in the specification of frame-oriented media and in complex logical
environments such as computer based training. Sets of well defined, strategy independent structures also allow the easy
and economical construction of learner controlled training environments where desirable.


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Perhaps the greatest strength of the ISD process is the evolutionary nature of the prescriptive, research-based model
itself. While the practice of ISD still retains the strengths of the empirical evaluation and revision cycles, to the extent
research and experience permit, it is prescriptive. That is, rather than depending extensively on the test-revision cycle
to generate effective instruction in an iterative manner, every attempt is made to incorporate research findings and past
experience into the detailed procedures and supporting ISD documentation to ensure that the instruction developed
comes as close to the mark as possible the first time. This improves the validity of the process while also improving
reliability. This has proven to be a powerful tool in large scale ISD. In addition, as the process provides more data from
the constant evaluation process, the procedures can be continually improved.
At the detailed level the particular procedures developed for each ISD model may differ considerably. Figure 3 shows
some important sub procedures or acivities for a typical industrial training ISD model. There are strong dependencies
between the activities.



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1) Task Analysis is dependent upon a clear identification of the problem as a training problem. If the problem is NOT
a training problem, no amount of training or training related activity will solve the problem. Therefore a task analysis
should not be undertaken until there is clear identification of the problem as a training problem.


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2) Similarly, the Needs, Goals and Constraints Analysis (NG&C) should not be completed until there is clear
identification of the problem as a training problem. However, since this may sometimes require some of the activities
normally completed during a NG&C in order to fully determine, the dependency is partially mutual.
3) The Entry Population Analysis (EPA) is intended to identify the important characteristics of the intended
population(s) for the training. While this may seem on the surface to be straightforward, there are sometimes surprises
uncovered during the NG&C in terms of who wants (or doesn't want) the training, and for what. Therefore the EPA is
dependent upon the NG&C to at least the degree that it should not be finished until all the information from NG&C is
available.
One major purpose of the EPA is to help with the selection of tasks for training (sometimes called out as a separate
ISD activity). The premise is that there is no use spending time, money, and effort on developing instruction for
skill/tasks uncovered on the task analysis, if the intended population already has these skills etc in their repertoire.
Therefore the EPA is dependent on the Task Analysis being completed before the EPA can be completed. On the other
hand, it is more economical to compare the entry capabilities of the intended population against the restricted set of
things identified in the task analysis than it is to ascertain/describe the entry repertoire in general of the population.
4) Once the EPA is completed and the tasks to be trained have been selected, it is possible to define the Evaluation
and Implementation Plans. This plan must accommodate the needs and goals of the various groups identified in the
NG&C and must conform to the availability of samples of the population identified in the EPA for formative evaluation.
In addition, the implementation planning must accommodate the constraints (personnel, time, resources, budget, and
traditions/corporate culture) of the organizations impacted. Failure to plan UP FRONT for both the evaluation and
implementation of the training can result in serious problems later in the project.
5) Once the tasks to be trained have been selected as part of the EPA, it is possible to expand the objectives derived
from the surviving portions of the task analysis into an Objectives Hierarchy by supplying the supporting and enabling
objectives that this student population will require. For example, an experienced, sophisticated population learning a new
variant on an already mastered set of skills may not require many intermediate levels of partial training objectives. A
naive, unsophisticated population may need lots of levels of successive approximations of the more complex tasks, and


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naive, unsophisticated population may need lots of levels of successive approximations of the more complex tasks, and
they may even need considerable training on how to use the training system and/or on "how to learn" in general, not just
on the training content.
6) As the Objectives Hierarchy is completed, it is possible to begin examining the media requirements the objectives
imply in terms of stimulus, response, control, record keeping, and other dimensions. This is only one part of the final
media decision and at this point should be concerned only with the instructional requirements of the objectives,
unfettered by real world considerations of cost, availability, etc.
As basic instructional requirements are established, the media choices for each objective must be qualified by cost,
availability, and practical considerations of implementation within the syllabus context. For this reason the final media
selection is mutually interdependent with the syllabus development process. Sometimes you may have to make changes
in the media selection based on practical considerations from the syllabus, and other times you may choose to make
alternative decisions on the syllabus definition based on media considerations. These decisions must NOT violate
considerations of minimum instructional requirements for the media for an objective, or prerequisite sequencing in the
syllabus, however. That is, the media you finally settle on must be able to do the job called for in the objective, and the
syllabus sequence you end up with must never have a student trying to accomplish an objective for which he has not had
the prerequisites.
8) As the Objectives Hierarchy is completed, it becomes possible to Classify Objectives in terms of the category of
instructional problem they represent.
To a certain extent, this will affect the media selection in that certain instructional strategy dimensions in terms of
control, manipulation of stimuli, and numbers of instances may imply certain media requirements. The indirect nature of
this interaction is implied through the route from the Objectives Classification to the Media Selection through the
Syllabus Development. It may be that a more direct connection on the diagram would better represent the relationship.
Similarly, resource constraints identified in the NG&C may affect the final media selection, by reducing the suite of
candidate media realistically to be considered.


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9) The mutual interdependence of the Syllabus Development and Media Selection processes has been identified
above, as has the requirement that the syllabus derived must not violate prerequisite relationships between objectives
identified in the Objectives Hierarchy Development.
10) The syllabus should accomodate the Objective Classification in that an "early hands on" approach should be
encouraged as opposed to a "do all low level objectives first before advancing to the next level of the hierarchy"
approach. That is, if possible, the syllabus should encourage the learner to advance quickly up a leg of the hierarchy
until a significant skill, representing some identifiable subset of the job being trained, can be mastered, before returning
to the lower levels of the hierarchy and attempting another leg of the hierarchy. The alternative of doing all low level
objectives first and then advancing leads to syllabus definitions which result in days/weeks/months of low level learning
objectives such as memorizing terms, locations, and functions, before advancing to simple procedures, and finally, late in
the course, actually beginning to master some of the high level objectives which are identifiable as approximations of the
job being trained. This latter approach will severely impact motivation.
11) Further, of course, the syllabus must accomodate the real world concerns and constraints identified in the NG&C.
Shortages of critical resources such as simulators, instructors, and certain media or facilities may lead to quite a
different syllabus design than would otherwise be the case. The syllabus must accomodate these considerations as
anticipated in the Evaluation & Implementation Plan.
12) The Author Management System which manages/tracks development of the training materials is dependent on the
syllabus in several ways. First, the syllabus may be implemented in part while development of the later materials is still
underway. This is often the case where time is a severe constraint. In that case the syllabus will identify the order in
which development should proceed as well as the order in which learners will progress. In addition, the syllabus order
must always be accomodated in the instruction in the sense that until you know the syllabus order, you cannot assume
what the learner will already know at any given part of the course. This confusion often leads inexperienced developers
(especially SME's) to essentially try to "teach the entire course" in each instructional segment.
13) The Lesson Specifications are generated according to the instructional strategy most appropriate for the
instructional classification of each objective. They constitute the "micro-design" and initial content capture for each
lesson.


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lesson.
14) The lesson is then developed in full and the media/materials are produced.
15)-16) The course is then implemented and evaluated according to the Implementation and Evaluation Plan
developed in (6) above.
This is only one example of an elaborated ISD model. Each project and institution will develop their own detailed
model. The ISD approach, with its potential for self improvement and its engineering discipline has taken instructional
development from the productivity of the individual artisan to the productivity and quality control of the factory. It is
limited only by the imagination and discipline of the practitioners.

Molnar, A.R. the future of educational technology research and development. Washington, D.C. : National Science
Foundation, 1971. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 054 642)
Merrill, M.D., & Boutwell, R.C. Instructional development: Methodology and research. In F.N Kerlinger (Ed) Review
of research in Education (Vol 1). Itasca, Ill. F.E. Peacock, Publishers, 1973.
Gibbons, A.S. The influence of instructional systems development (ISD) on simulator design. Wicat Systems, Orem,
Utah, 1988.
Copyright © 1996 Island MultiMedia. All rights reserved. Reprint of this article is allowed with copyright
acknowledgement.

Island MultiMedia



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Last Updated January 2003
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