Second Generation Instructional Design

Second Generation Instructional Design 2 Sometime ago the editor of this journal suggested to the first author that there was very little that was new in instructional design. In a recent meeting a colleague suggested that all of the instructional design theory in current use was at least 20 years old and firmly rooted in behavioral psychology. Is current ID theory adequate to the needs of contemporary instructional designers? Does current ID theory provide the guidance necessary to take advantage of the new interactive technologies available to us for instruction? This represents the first in a series of articles exploring instructional design theory, technique and practice. We invite your reactions and input. The most widely applied instructional design theory is based largely on the work of Robert M. Gagné and his associates at Florida State University. This work is often equated with the term Instructional Systems Development (ISD). It assumes a cumulative organization of learning events based on prerequisite relationships among learned behaviors. Gagné's principal assumption is that there are different kinds of learned outcomes, and that different internal and external conditions are necessary to promote each type. Gagné's original work (Gagné, 1965) was based on the experimental learning psychology of the time, including paired associate learning, serial learning, operant conditioning, concept learning, and gestalt problem solving. Recent versions (Gagné, 1985) have incorporated ideas from cognitive psychology, but the essential characteristics of the original work remain. is built directly upon Gagné's principal assumption. We extended the outcome classification system by separating content type from performance level. We also added a more detailed taxonomy of presentation types and clarified the prescriptions of the Gagné position. Nevertheless, Component Display Theory has the same roots as the Gagné position. Second Generation Instructional Design 3 Theory. Gagné extends cumulative prerequisite analysis by including provide sets of recommendations for teaching concepts and rules that are similar to the recommendations of The Conditions of Learning and Component Display Theory. Most of these theories were developed relatively independently of one another, yet produce similar recommendations, thus providing some rough confirmation of the validity of the recommendations. In this paper we refer to this body of theory and methodology as First Generation Instructional Design (ID 1). 1 While there is a remarkable similarity in their prescriptions, they share a number of limitations: content analysis focuses on components, not integrated wholes; there are limited or no prescriptions for knowledge …