The civic-minded instructional designers framework: An alternative approach to contemporary instructional designers' education in higher education

This paper argues that an emphasis on training-for-the-job approaches has distracted designers from thinking about the meaning of their profession and the grand purpose of practising instructional design. Drawing from literature in the fields of sociology and educational technology, this paper synthesises discourses on civic professionalism in instructional design and technology, and proposes a conceptual framework that highlights the roles and qualities of a civic-minded instructional designer. It is claimed that a critical discussion on civic professionalism in the field of educational technology can offer an alternative perspective on educating instructional designers, and have practical implications on instructional design and technology curricula in higher education. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic: • Instructional design and technology (IDT) academics and scholars have acknowledged that the current gap in teaching IDT is the discrepancy between the way instructional design is practised in real-world situations and the way it is taught in IDT classrooms. • To address the gap, IDT academics and scholars have proposed authentic learning approaches into IDT education. • IDT literature is dominated by the perspective of preparing designers to be technically competent professionals, thus undermining designers’ transformative power to initiate social change. What this paper adds: • This paper critiques the career-centric view and training-for-the-job goal embedded in contemporary authentic learning approaches. • This paper suggests the application of civic professionalism in preparing instructional designers who are both socially aware and technically competent in performing their job. British Journal of Educational Technology (2011) doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01185.x © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 Bera. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. • The civic-minded instructional designers (CMID) conceptual framework is proposed to scaffold our thinking of the undermined yet critical social aspect of the IDT profession. • The CMID framework highlights the paradigm and the qualities to be instilled into IDT curricula in an effort to produce civic-minded IDT professionals. Implications for practice and/or policy: • Makes explicit links to social issues in micro, macro and mega contexts in teaching IDT • Clarifies the roles of IDT profession in solving social issues • Stresses the importance of nurturing designers’ civic identities by embedding the CMID conceptual framework in IDT curricula Introduction Academics and practitioners have expressed concern about preparing instructional designers at higher education institutions for academia (eg, Cox, 2003; Larson, 2004; Rowland, Parra & Basnet, 1995) and corporations (eg, Julian, 2001; Larson & Lockee, 2009). There seems to be a consensus that there is a discrepancy between the way instructional design is practised in realworld situations and the way it is taught in instructional design and technology (IDT) classrooms. Part of this discrepancy is because IDT is almost always taught as a set of procedures and most often focuses on media production. Such a narrow focus of IDT ‘ignores the complexity of this discipline and the high level of communication, negotiation, and other related skills needed for the practitioner to successfully approach instructional problems’ (Bannan-Ritland, 1999, p. 1). Also contributing to the discrepancy is that most teaching approaches heavily emphasise an understanding of the various instructional design models available in the field (Bichelmeyer, Boling & Gibbons, 2006). This model-centric approach fails to address the broader scope of instructional design knowledge, and, consequently, does not successfully prepare students to be professional instructional designers in the field (Ertmer & Cennamo, 1995). In addition, students’ confidence in exploring new ways of doing instructional design (Bichelmeyer et al, 2006) may decrease. The problems associated with these approaches have resulted in a call for authentically based teaching approaches that mirror actual design practices (eg, Cox, 2003). In response, researchers have begun to explore new approaches to instructional design that prepare students for the actual jobs that they will perform and situations that they may face. This includes the studio-design model (eg, Boling & Smith, 2009), action learning (eg, Bannan-Ritland, 1999) and cognitive apprenticeship (eg, Ertmer & Cennamo, 1995). Critiques on current approaches to educate instructional designers Contemporary authentic approaches have undoubtedly contributed to a deeper understanding of the actual design practices in real-world situations. However, this paper argues that contemporary teaching approaches are more focused on preparing students to enter their desired instructional design career than satisfying the needs of the industry. Consequently, teaching focuses on equipping instructional designers-in-training with an assortment of technical skills and tools so that they will be technically competent in performing their jobs. These tools include the ability to perform a variety of analyses, instructional activities and assessments (Schwier, Hill, Wager & Spector, 2006). Additionally, contemporary teaching approaches highly emphasise the work process, ‘how instructional design is carried out, what strategies and approaches work in various contexts, how designers should systematically practice their craft’ (Campbell, Schwier & Kenny, 2008, p. 1)—in other words, the issues of what and how of the field. 2 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 Bera. In this paper, we argue that an overemphasis on career preparation has led IDT faculty, practitioners and scholars to subscribe to the perspective of training-for-the-job. Consequently, this perspective has caused us to overlook another critical yet undervalued aspect of IDT, that is, the why aspect of the profession and the meaning of being instructional designers (Campbell et al, 2008). This overemphasis on career preparation also distracts us from considering the relevance and ‘grand purpose’ (Schwier et al, 2006, p. 75) of practising instructional design. Accordingly, as Campbell and her associates (2008) have asserted, instructional designers’ critical and transformative powers to initiate and to activate change at an interpersonal, institutional and societal levels are undervalued. What worries us the most is that a career-centric approach to IDT may result in the production of IDT professionals who view their professional work and lives as detached and separated from the public’s life. Rather than looking at their work as publicly related, these professionals are more likely to think of their profession from technical and economic points of view. That is, they think of commercialising their IDT knowledge and skills in the pursuit of gaining economic benefits and enjoying better social status. Consequently, these technocratic IDT professionals may become an elite group of instructional designers—designers whose services become exclusively available only to selected clients, especially those associated with profit-making organisations. We may therefore have unintentionally withheld our professional services from the larger society, which includes citizens of low socioeconomic status, community-based and non-profit organisations as well as public school systems. If this is the case, then we as IDT professionals have not met the ‘social expectations of professionals to serve the public good’ (Hatcher, 2008, p. 2). Purpose of this study Considering these situations, we see a critical need to establish an alternative approach to designers’ education, one that encourages designers to value the civic meaning of their profession. To date, however, there is little scholarly discourse on the civic aspect of the IDT profession. One of the reasons for this silence could be that the study of professions and professionalism is beyond the scope of IDT. Indeed, it can be principally attributed to the field of sociology (Hatcher, 2008). Second, discourse on professionalism in IDT literature centres on ethical codes that govern the profession (eg, Yeaman, Eastmond & Napper, 2008). These discussions reflect a structuralist analysis of a profession (Hatcher, 2008) that focuses on ethical practices. What is still lacking is a scholarly discussion from a functionalist perspective, one that emphasises the role and the ethical practices of an individual professional in a society with respect to civic professionalism in IDT (Hatcher, 2008). What follows is an attempt to (1) synthesise literature related to civic professionalism and (2) based on this synthesis, propose a conceptual framework that highlights the roles and qualities of civic-minded instructional designers (CMID). We argue that developing a new conceptual framework is critical to helping IDT professionals scrutinise the conceptualisation of IDT as a profession. Moreover, this new framework offers an alternative perspective on how we prepare instructional designers at higher education institutions. Civic professionalism The concept of civic professionalism has been discussed across disciplines and professions including education (eg, Peters, 2004), history (eg, Kimball, 1996), political science (eg, Dzur, 2004) and nursing (eg, Day, 2005). However, because the main purpose of this paper relates to the academic preparation of future IDT professionals by higher education institutions, this review focuses almost exclusively on civic professionalism from the perspectives of John Dewey (1927) and William M. Sullivan (2004, 2005). Civic-minded instructional designers 3 © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 Bera. Discussions on civic professionalism can be dated back to John Dewey’s (1927) writing in The public and its problems. Dewey believed that professionals could serve as critical intermediaries to educate the public on the effects of larger social and economic forces and, consequently, could shape them to accommodate public needs (Dzur, 2004). Dewey (1927) emphasised the importance of public participation in contemporary democracy. Specifically, Dewey (1927) thought of professionals as experts who do not just ‘represent and act for the public’ but rather ‘facilitate the public’s solution to social problems.’ This facilitation, Dewey theorised, can be accomplished either directly by ‘providing analysis for motivated community groups’ or indirectly by ‘influencing the conduct of other professions’ (Dzur, 2004, p. 11). Thus, Dewey rejected the liberalist view of knowledge and intelligence as an ‘individual possession’ (1987, p. 47). Rather, he advocated for the concept of social ‘scientific intelligence’ which refers to the ‘egalitarian distribution of the capacity for scientific thinking and its incorporation into democratic decision-making in the polity, workplace and elsewhere’ (Westbrook, 1991, p. 187). From this point of view, knowledge is considered an asset of the society (Boyte, 2003) that needs to be shared through dialogic conversations and interactions (Hatcher, 2008). William M. Sullivan (2004, 2005) expanded on Dewey’s (1927, 1987) civic professionalism. He proposes two concepts of professionalism: technical and civic. Technical professionalism supports the view of professionals as experts with specific knowledge and skills. These professionals are considered ‘purveyor[s] of expert services’ (Sullivan, 2005, p. 9). Conversely, civic professionalism refers to the ideal of social reciprocity between professionals and the public, that is, the people that they profess to serve, in which ‘professionals ... learn to bring their particular expertise into a larger, more complex deliberation about ends as well as means’ (2005, p. 279). What really distinguishes each concept is the ethical dimension of professionalism, which Sullivan argued is ‘institutionalised in the profession’s social contract’ (2005, p. 23) with the public. According to Sullivan (2004, 2005), this ethical dimension is the most essential yet jeopardised, dimension of professionalism. Sullivan (2004) also argued that professionals and their professions are directly pledged to the ideals of public service. Professionals make an implicit pledge and social contract with the public that they will deploy their skills and expertise to advance ‘the social values in the interest of those they serve’ (Sullivan, 2004, p. 15). He argued that this responsibility and orientation toward public values are the important characteristics that distinguish professionals from other knowledge workers. From this point of view, an individual professional acts as a community or social trustee of knowledge. Civic professionalism in IDT The review of literature revealed that the term ‘civic professionalism’ has not previously been explicitly mentioned in IDT literature. There are attempts, however, to bring forth discussions on the social aspects of the IDT profession and on the roles of an instructional designer in society, one of the characteristics of a civic-minded professional outlined by Sullivan (2004, 2005). For instance, Campbell, Schwier and Kenny (2005, 2008, 2009) are among the few IDT researchers who have consistently attempted to discuss the roles of instructional designers in today’s society. Using a combination of grounded theory and narrative inquiry, they conducted a 3-year study on the topic of instructional designers’ roles as agents of social change with 20 instructional designers working with faculty (ie, clients) at six Canadian universities. This research led them through ‘a web of interacting variables, including things such as professional identity, experience, institutional change, professional preparation, and professional communities of practice’ (Schwier et al, 2006, p. 76), aspects that are not thoroughly discussed in the mainstream IDT literature. These findings led Campbell et al (2005, 2008, 2009) to conclude that instructional designers are potential social-change agents at interpersonal, institutional and societal levels. This perception 4 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 Bera. is based on the researchers’ view of instructional design as ‘a socially constructed practice ... with socially transformative power through the positioning of the self in explicit action’ (2005, p. 244). They have asserted that instructional designers initiate and activate changes by expressing their personal values, beliefs and convictions while engaging in social interaction or design conversations with their clients. Through these design conversations, instructional designers discuss issues that challenge clients’ perceptions about concepts, purposes, forms and cultural implications of learning. By doing so, they contribute to modifying the social context that leads towards personal, institutional and social changes. In this sense, the practice of design, at least to these researchers, is not just an act rather it is a process that involves moral and political consequences. Similarly, Inouye, Merrill and Swan (2005) proposed the concept of IDT as a helping profession. Help, they have asserted, is, has always been, and should always be the central concern of IDT, but is rarely and implicitly discussed in the literature. In fact, they contended that helping others to learn ‘is the very reason for the existence of our [IDT] field—the reason why we apply science, design artifacts, and use technology’ (p. 4). Thus, ‘help’ needs to be acknowledged as the new paradigm of IDT around which revolve the other three ‘traditional’ (p. 4) paradigms—of scientific, design and technology. Inouye et al (2005) contended that the scientific paradigm views IDT as a science that focuses on seeking, discovering and applying invariant laws, relationships or principles as embodied in IDT instructional research, theory and measurement. The design paradigm views IDT as a design-based discipline that seeks effective, efficient and appealing approaches to design. It is embodied in IDT and the instructional design and development subfields of IDT. On the other hand, the technology paradigm views IDT as technology centred, that is, using technology to accomplish a user’s purposes. Because the act of helping people and making a difference in their lives is, ‘by definition, ethical’ (Inouye et al, 2005, p. 5), the new fourth paradigm is called the ethics-centred paradigm with ‘help’ as its main concern. In this realm, other paradigms are viewed as subordinate to ethics. Ethics is the utmost important purpose or the ends of doing instructional design. The theories, techniques, models and the technology that characterise the other three paradigms are considered the means of doing instructional design. Instructional designers, then, are viewed as instructors and teachers, not technologists. Their main role is to help ‘foster growth of individuals in all of the important venues of their lives: school, workplace, home, church, and community—the traditional locations of interest for education and the social sciences’ (Inouye et al, 2005, p. 4), using ‘the best available technologies and techniques’ (Inouye et al, 2005, p. 15). So far, this section has synthesised literature on civic professionalism as applicable to the IDT profession. The discourse in the literature on this issue is clearly limited. Therefore, it calls for development of a sound conceptual framework on what, who, why and how to educate CMID. In an attempt to answer these questions, the next section of this paper discusses the important attributes of CMID. These attributes become the foundational elements of a proposed conceptual framework that highlights the roles and qualities of CMID.