Blueprints for Complex Learning: The 4C/ID-Model

This article provides an overview description of the four-component instructional design system (4C/ID-model) developed originally by van Merriënboer and others in the early 1990s (van Merriënboer, Jelsma, & Paas, 1992) for the design of training programs for complex skills. It discusses the structure of training blueprints for complex learning and associated instructional methods. The basic claim is that four interrelated components are essential in blueprints for complex learning: (a) learning tasks, (b) supportive information, (c) just-in-time (JIT) information, and (d) part-task practice. Instructional methods for each component are coupled to the basic learning processes involved in complex learning and a fully worked-out example of a training blueprint for “searching for literature” is provided. Readers who benefit from a structured advance organizer should consider reading the appendix at the end of this article before reading the entire article. The instructional design enterprise is a bit like an ocean liner—huge, slow, ponderous, and requiring large amounts of energy and a great deal of time to move it even one degree off its current path. Recent discussions and developments in the field concern rapid technological and societal changes and the resulting need for very complex knowledge at work (Berryman, 1993; Cascio, 1995); new constructivist design theories for problem solving (Jonassen, 1994; Reigeluth, 1999a; Schwarz, Brophy, Lin, & Bransford, 1999); arguments for new context and technology-based design (Driscoll & Dick, 1999; Kozma, 2000; Richey, 1998); two decades of systematic design research and development by John Anderson (1983, 1993; Anderson & Lebiere, 1998), and innovative work on “first principles of instruction” by designer-researcher David Merrill (2000). These welcome discussions have at least one important goal in common-the gradual evolution of design theory to accommodate complex learning. Future design theory should support the development of training programs for learners who need to learn and transfer highly complex cognitive skills or “competencies” to an increasingly varied set of realworld contexts and settings. In addition, adequate design for complex skills helps overcome findings that under some conditions, inadequate design may cause learning problems (Clark, 1988).