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This document summarizes chapters 2 and 3 of Morrison and Ross's book “Designing Effective Instruction”. I used this summary for the course “Education Design” in year 4 of the AOLB. However, this course has merged into the course “Educational design for language-oriented WO”, but ...
Summary Designing Effective
Instruction
Chapter 2: Identifying the Need for Instruction
Instructional intervention = some type of instruction or training for the individuals who experience
the problem, ranging from on-the-job coaching to formal classroom instruction.
Some examples:
Suppose performance is not meeting expectations (failure on a test, underperformance by
911-personnel)
Work environment can change as a result of modifications in procedure or the installation of
new equipment (new digital resources causing problems for personnel because they don’t
know how to use them)
A company or industry can expand so rapidly that qualified personnel are in short supply
(inexperienced personnel hired)
Identifying the problem determines whether instruction is needed (maybe the students failed on the
test because just before they heard some awful news). This can be done in three ways:
1. Needs assessment
a. Rossett: 4 opportunities for identifying performance problems:
i. Introduction or rollout of a new product: support must be available to a
mechanic if a new car is introduced in order to be able to repair the vehicle
ii. Responding to an existing performance problem: if certain products are
being returned more often to a computer mail-order company, what could
be the case of the problem (e.g. the manual is not being clear)?
iii. Recognition of a need to develop its people so they can continue to
contribute to the growth of the company: if there are some new
developments the old staff isn’t able to keep up with, you should consider
training them (or replacing them, yikes).
iv. Strategy development: analyses resulting in decision-making.
b. Has a limited life span, as needs change over time. Can be helpful to avoid providing
too much instruction when not necessary. It can also help identify appropriate uses
of instruction.
c. Needs assessment= identification of gaps in performance and deciding if it is
necessary to intervene. This does not always involve an instruction and does not only
apply to business and sales departments, but also, for example, to schools.
d. Needs analysis= examine the gap and identification of causes of that gap.
e. Four functions of needs assessment:
i. Identification of relevant needs and problems that are affecting performance
ii. Identification of critical needs that have a significant financial impact/ affect
safety/ disruption of work or educational environment
iii. Priority setting for selection of intervention
iv. Providing baseline data to assess the effectiveness of the instruction
f. Six categories of needs:
i. Normative needs: comparison of target audience against a national standard
(CITO).
ii. Comparative needs: comparison of target audience against a peer group (e.g.
another school).
, iii. Felt needs: individual’s desire to improve either his or her performance or
that of the target audience (e.g. the professor adapts the curriculum of a
course, to make it more up-to-date for the students).
iv. Expressed needs: a felt need turned into action (e.g. enrolling in a workshop)
v. Anticipated or future needs: means of identifying changes that will occur in
the future (e.g. teaching teachers how to use virtual reality goggles in the
classroom)
vi. Critical incident needs: rare occasions like nuclear accidents or tornadoes
g. How to conduct a needs assessment:
i. Phase 1: planning -> target audience – strategy for collecting data – analysis
what is most important – participants
ii. Phase 2: collecting data -> sample size should be representational –
scheduling
iii. Phase 3: data analysis -> analysis will lead to a prioritization of needs. Delphi
method (narrowing the sample size down) is a systematic and thorough data
gathering process, but it costs a lot of time and high effort
iv. Phase 4: final report
1. Summary of the study’s purpose
2. Summary of the process (how it was done and who was involved)
3. Summary of results in one or more tables and a brief narrative
4. Necessary recommendations based on the data
2. Goal analysis
a. Begins with input suggesting a problem: e.g. someone notices that his/ her
colleagues are not involved during meetings -> why is that?
b. Six steps of goal analysis:
i. Identify an aim: aim= a general intent that gives direction
ii. Set goals
iii. Refine goals
iv. Rank goals by certain criteria (e.g. importance, goals that will cause problems
if ignored)
v. Refine goals again
vi. Make a final ranking
c. Goal analysis takes less time than a needs assessment and has a more narrow focus.
Deciding which method to select depends on a number of factors (like time, cost,
scope of the project and the validity of the information the designer obtains from the
participants). A needs assessment is used for projects that can justify involved time
and cost, a goal analysis is used for a valid problem of when time and resources do
not allow for a needs assessment.
3. Performance assessment
a. Some problems don’t need a training program, but an assessment of performance to
see what’s the problem. It is an aid to identify performance problems.
i. Causes of performance problems:
1. Lack of knowledge or skills -> provide training
2. Lack of motivation or incentive -> improve motivation and/ or offer
incentives for performance
3. Environmental factors -> modify environment or change workstation
to facilitate task
4. Management factors -> change management practices or train/
coach manager
5. Interpersonal relations -> change work environment; provide
coaching, conflict resolution; change management practices or policy
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