On Jul 22, 7:58 pm, missu <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have never heard the phrase or title "Instructional Design" before today.
Instruction Design, or Instructional Systems Design (ISD), has been around for a long time, and that discipline certainly has major overlaps with interaction design, particularly in the design of tutorials, simulations, questions, feedback and tests. IxD can be applied to many areas that don't involve instruction, just as instruction design concepts and discipline can be applied to non- interactive settings (such as programmed workbooks), less and less so these days. The user research methods are more or less the same. One key element of instructional design is quantifiable objectives, as in, "After completing this unit, the student will able to achieve a score of x in the y test..." If the mastery test is part of the course, the course may force students to review material and re-take the test until the define level of mastery is attained. Of course another distinctive area is designing questions and answer choices - there is a subtle art to asking questions (especially multiple) that don't give away the answer yet are not perversely "unfair" either. Another key area of design is how to process answers, especially wrong answers - some options being (a) just give the right answer, (b) ask the student to try again, (c) simply indicate right or wrong and keep score, etc. The best approach depends on the purpose and context of the instruction. I still treasure a quote from an instructional design textbook (Alessi & Trollop, 1985) that "Timed events are too long for some, too short for others, and just right for nobody." This comes up in discussions of Flash animations all the time! ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
