E-learning Curve Blog at Edublogs » systems approach

Discovering Instructional Design 5: Stages in the Affective Taxonomy

Michael Hanley — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Goal statements (sometimes called purpose statements) are often used with the Affective Taxonomy. They answer the question, “Why does the student need to learn this material?” Goal statements reflect the instructional designer’s empathy for the learner’s motivation and attitudes, which should enhance the outcome of the lesson (see Table 1).

Table 1 Levels off the Affective Domain

Affective Domain
Level	Definition	Example
Receiving	Being aware of or attending to something in the environment.	Person would listen to a lecture or presentation about a structural model related to human behavior.
Responding	Showing some new behaviors as a result of experience. To act or comply; to perform an act willingly and to obtain satisfaction from it.	The individual would answer questions about the model or might rewrite lecture notes the next day.
Valuing	Showing some definite involvement or commitment. To accept, prefer or commit oneself because of its perceived worth or value; to appreciate; defend; judge; praise; volunteer	The individual might begin to think how education may be modified to take advantage of some of the concepts presented in the model and perhaps generate a set of lessons using some of the concepts presented
Organization	Integrating a new value into one’s general set of values, giving it some ranking among one’s general priorities. To compare, relate and synthesize values into one’s own value system; question; dispute.	This is the level at which a person would begin to make long-range commitments to arranging his or her instruction and assessment relative to the model
Characterization by Value	Acting consistently with the new value. To integrate values or value systems into one’s style or philosophy of life.	At this highest level, a person would be firmly committed to utilizing the model to develop, select, or arrange instruction and would become known for that action.

Using behavioral terms, samples of performances are constructed that will provide evidence that the students have achieved the purpose.

For example

Original objective:
“Upon completion of tasks in the auto repair shop, replenish supplies to maintain the stock levels specified in the shop stock handbook.”

Amended to include an affective goal:
“Upon completion of tasks in the auto repair shop, replenish supplies to maintain the stock levels specified in the shop stock handbook without supervision”.

If learners meet this objective “without supervision,” no one will watch them, pressure them, or remind them to replenish supplies; they must now complete this task on their own. If learners meet such an objective, they are functioning at the Responding level of attitude, or perhaps at an even higher level.

Other goal statements include:

Voluntarily takes action to…
Without being told to do…
Without promise of reward…
Without threat of punishment…
In spite of social pressure to do otherwise…
Initiates on his or her own…

Notice the last three of these phrases. If learners undertake an activity in their own time, initiate something on their own, or do something in spite of social pressure to do otherwise, they are displaying behavior at the Valuing level of the taxonomy (and perhaps higher).

Short courses and brief exposure to material can be expected to change attitudes only in small ways, and only at the lower affective levels (receiving, responding, and, possibly, valuing).

Changes at the higher affective levels (valuing, organization, and characterization) require much longer exposures – an entire course rather than a lesson, or a program of instruction: these are more difficult to evaluate and measure, typically at Kirkpatrick Level Three. We cannot be sure a particular attitude characterizes a person if the only measure or index used is a formative or summative assessment.

More…

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ADDIE, and the Systems Approach: a Critical Analysis

Michael Hanley — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:47:00 +0000

In yesterday’s post I looked at a systems approach to instructional design and development, and suggested that this approach was an emergent property of the process whereby instructor-led courseware developers in the 1990’s attempted to apply previously-effective training development techniques to the new domain of e-learning.

As an example, I looked at the ADDIE design appraoch and suggested that it could be characterized as a set of heuristics (or conceptual framework) to enable learning professionals to output content commensurate with the systems approach.

Now read on…

In this context, we can say that ADDIE will only deliver results consistent with the expertise of the content designer, as it relies on their (the designers’) skills and experience in transferring information and knowledge to “deliver” learning to the recipient. In E-Learning Strategies: how to get implementation and delivery right first time, Don Morrison remarks that

…like many ISD models it fails to give clear guidance about what makes good learning content. You can follow ADDIE to the letter and still deliver mediocre content.

(2004, p.255)

It can be said that ADDIE (and similar systems’ approaches to learning content development) are closer in philosophy and practice to a project management methodology than a pedagogy. In this respect they can be a useful approach when developing “one-shot” training content in environments where repetitive worker activities are the norm.

Take this scenario as an example:

Production workers have just started using the new WidgetMaker 300-0 tool: it can create 3o widgets per hour.

As it’s operating principles are very similar to the the older WM 299-8 (20 widgets per hour) model, the organization decides that workers only need a 2-day familiarization course before beginning production with the new tool.

A new production target (30 WPH) is set for workers to reflect the increased efficiency of the tool.

After three months, production is still 5WPH short of target. It turns out that workers are using the old production process on the new machine, and with the expectation of attaining 30WPH are actually working harder than ever, but are still 50% short of the difference between the new and old hourly production rate. Much disgruntlement all round.

It seems that there’s an extra gadget on the handle of the WM300-0 that nobody noticed because of the cursory nature of the 2-day familiarization course.

Time for some training…

Table 1. Formative evaluation is present in each stage of the ADDIE process.

2. Summative evaluation consists of tests designed for criterion-related referenced items and providing opportunities for feedback from the users.

Once they have undergone formative and summative evaluation, learners are encouraged to review and revise the courseware as necessary, until they have successfully passed the proscribed tests

The transactional nature of the systems approach assumes that the very act of communicating information to the supplicant (sorry, learner) results in the output of “learning.”

Adhering to this content development methodology, instructors consider that the channels used to “deliver” knowledge are cognitively neutral and merely replicate and modalities of the classroom – voice-over narration equating to instructor explanation, the screen being equivalent to the overhead projector or blackboard, computer-mediated interaction being the essentially the same as teacher-student interaction, and so on.

By balancing the cognitive load across the learning modalities, it is supposed that knowledge can be effectively delivered, and the student will “learn.” A corollory of this is that the learning delivery channels (visual, audial, text-based, and so forth) themselves have no affect upon the learner’s interpretation of the content, so to all intents and purposes, the “sage on the stage” transforms into the “guide by the side.”

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References:

Brown, J. S. Collins, C. & Duguid, P. (1989) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning [Internet] Educational Researcher 18(1), pp. 32-42, Jan-Feb 1989. Available from: http://tiger.coe.missouri.edu/%7Ejonassen/courses/CLE/index.html [Accessed January 12th 2007]

Dick, W. & Carey, L. (1996). The Systematic Design of Instruction (4th Ed.). New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Dillon, P. & Hallett, C. (2001, October). Powering the leap to maturity: The eLearning ecosystem. Cisco Systems white paper.

Exclusive Interview with Professor David Jonassen (2001) IN: elearningpost [Internet] Available from: http://www.elearningpost.com/articles/archives/
exclusive_interview_with_professor_david_jonassen [Accessed 12th January 2007]

Molenda, M. (2003). In Search of the Elusive ADDIE Model. [Internet] Available from: http://www.indiana.edu/~molpage/
In%20Search%20of%20Elusive%20ADDIE.pdf Accessed 12 May 2008

Rosenberg, M.J. (2001) What Lies Beyond E-Learning? learningcircuits.org e-zine [Internet] Available from: http://www.learningcircuits.org/2006/March/rosenberg.htm Accessed 14th April 2007

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E-learning ecosystems and the failure of ADDIE

Michael Hanley — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Onwards with our investigation of the e-learning ecosystem and learning & development in organizations. Today’s post looks at the similarly-sounding but fundamentally different Systems Approach to instructional design and learning, and why the doubtful provenance of ADDIE combined with a misunderstanding of the role of content delivery channels have failed a generation of e-learners.

Now read on.

I have suggested that a growing number of researchers and learning professionals (Dillon & Hallett, Jonassen, Rosenberg etc) are recognizing the negative affect of what Brown, Collins, & Duguid (1989) call the “breach between learning and use” (p.1) of training interventions in organizations. We have seen that both instructor-led and ‘traditional’ self-paced learning courseware is relatively limited in its application, and is most effective in a restricted range of circumstances. Brown, Collins, & Duguid elaborate:

Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. [The authors] argue that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices. Drawing on recent research into cognition as it is manifest in everyday activity, the authors argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used.

(p.1)

To meet these conditions, we can say that it is appropriate to adapt both pedagogical approaches and the technology resources now available to enhance learners performance.

Marc J. Rosenberg concurs:

Although e-learning began as a new way to deliver training, it cannot remain that way because it is no longer able to adequately support all the learning needs of individuals and organizations by itself – if it every was. E-learning has moved in a new, somewhat unanticipated direction that is not always reminiscent of an instructional framework. To be more influential, e-learning must be reinvented. While continuing to provide a viable instructional option in a formal learning setting, it must also move toward informational and collaborative solutions that focus more prominently on the specific jobs people do. It must move beyond courseware and classrooms and into work. To reinvent e-learning is, in many ways, to reinvent learning itself.

In essence, this means transforming workplace learning, so that learning activities and resources are situated around the learner, their work environment, and their tasks, enabling learners to construct their own knowledge in the context of what resources they need to carry out their work effectively. As David Jonassen says:

In constructivist learning environments, technologies are used to situate learning tasks in a variety of contexts. With video, very rich and engaging contexts can be created.

He asserts that in the traditional organizational approach that

[u]nfortunately, most e-learning replicates the worst features of face-to-face instruction. So, it may be cheaper to “deliver” knowledge over the Internet, but it will not be more effective.

This is commonly known as the systems-based approach to instructional design & development (ISD). A system is a set of elements or components that must integrate to perform a specific function. Every job in an organization is used by the organizational ecosystem to produce a product or output. The product or output is the means by which a organization generates its assets and remains self-supporting.

There are four inputs necessary in every system to produce a product or output:

People: The workers making up a group and linked by a common activity.
Material: The raw products which go into the system.
Technology: The technique for achieving a practical purpose or goal.
Time: The measured period during which an action or process begins and ends.

In learning and development, this systems-based approach is epitomized by the ADDIE conceptual framework (see Figure 1), most notably refined by Dick & Carey in The Systematic Design of Instruction (1996).

Figure 1. The ADDIE ISD Heuristic

The ADDIE approach has been one of the core tenets of instructional design for the best part of two decades, but curiously, it may not exist! In his article In Search of the Elusive ADDIE Model (2003), Michael Molenda of Indiana University, the author undertook a Livingstonian attempt to discover the source for the original reference to the ADDIE model. Molenda’s research uncovered no original reference for the ADDIE model. This lack of an original reference led Molenda to write,

I am satisfied at this point to conclude that the ADDIE Model is merely a colloquial term used to describe a systematic approach to instructional development, virtually synonymous with instructional systems development (ISD). The label seems not to have a single author, but rather to have evolved informally through oral tradition. There is no original, fully elaborated model, just an umbrella term that refers to a family of models that share a common underlying structure.