On becoming a civic-minded instructional designer: An ethnographic study of an instructional design experience

This ethnographic study took place in a graduate course at a large research university in the Midwestern United States. It presents an in-depth examination of the experiences and challenges of a group of four students learning to be Instructional Design and Technology professionals who are concerned with the well-being of all members of a society, and wish to utilize their knowledge and skills to help solve social problems and improve people’s lives. Building on the results of previous research, findings indicate that the course, designed using the Civic-Minded Instructional Designers (CMID) framework, succeeded in enhancing students’ civic-minded agency, the group’s purposeful and reflective acts that aim at addressing the educational needs of community members. The course was designed to mimic a small, multiteam Instructional Design and Technology consulting company offering professional-level services free of charge. Community partners consisted of four real-world clients to whom students addressed an instructional issue. Data were collected from observations, focus groups, individual interviews with students and community partners, and analyses of course artifacts and students’ reflections. Students were found to diligently address community members’ needs, give voice to their community partners, address sustainability of their projects, be sensitive to their community partners’ perspectives and acknowledge their community partners as design partners. Challenges encountered include reconfiguring students’ roles and building trustful relationships with their community partners. This study contributes a deeper understanding of the roles of instructional design professionals within larger social contexts. Lessons learned can inform the implementation of the CMID framework in other educational programs. Introduction Criticisms of professional preparation programs in higher education have centered on the lack of connection between what is taught in classrooms and the reality of the professional workplace (Schwier, Hill, Wager & Spector, 2006; Williams van Rooij, 2010). Graduates of these programs are viewed as lacking in practical knowledge and skills needed by their future employers and are having difficulties in transitioning from their graduate lives to working environments. In response, higher educational institutions and faculty are now focusing on developing students’ technical knowledge and skills to better prepare them for the workplace. British Journal of Educational Technology (2013) doi:10.1111/bjet.12112 © 2013 British Educational Research Association While this approach has great merit in preparing students for Instructional Design andTechnology (IDT) careers, it has been criticized for focusing heavily on the process of design, ie, the what and how instructional design should be practised (Schwier et al, 2006). Additionally, this career-centric approach to IDT tends to keep producing technocratic IDT professionals more interested in economic gain than in utilizing their knowledge and skills for the public good (Sullivan, 2005). What is much needed is another dimension of professional preparation: a set of civic-minded professional qualities and identities that extends beyond the current focus on technical competencies in the education of instructional designers. The term civic-minded agency is defined here as an individual’s or group’s purposeful and reflective acts that aim at addressing the needs and concerns of members of a society. In this line of reasoning, a civic-minded instructional designer refers to an IDT professional concerned with the well-being of all members of a society, and who utilizes his or her knowledge and skills to help solve social problems and improve people’s lives. Social change is at the heart of such instructional design work, and contributing to an equal distribution of social goods (e.g., education and access to technology) is the work motivation (Yusop & Correia, 2012). This study describes the unique experiences of four graduate students and four community organization representatives (referred to as community partners in this paper) in an advanced Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic • Current approaches to teaching Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) have focused mostly on preparing instructional designers for the job. • There is growing interest in educating instructional designers to be both socially aware and technically competent in their jobs. • The Civic-Minded Instructional Designers (CMID) framework is an alternative approach to educating civic-minded professionals. What this paper adds • Provides evidence on how the CMID framework is being translated into instructional experiences. • Gives an in-depth case study of the creation of an IDT course guided by the CMID framework. • Reveals the opportunities and challenges experienced during an implementation of the CMID framework. • Illustrates the social interdependence between public service and higher education. • Stresses the importance of social responsibilities in higher education. Implications for practice and/or policy • Uses an alternative approach to preparing civic-minded professionals based on the concepts of civic professionalism. • Shares lessons learned in preparing civic-minded professionals that are of interest to those considering implementing such curricula in their academic programs. • Offers technological solutions for the public good. • Highlights the importance of being a social trustee of knowledge—one who utilizes his or her expertise for the well-being of society. • Points to the urgency of educating professionals as agents of change with transformative power to produce changes in society by actively participating in dialogue, activities and social policies that affect public good. 2 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2013 British Educational Research Association graduate IDT course redesigned based on the Civic-Minded Instructional Designers (CMID) framework (Yusop & Correia, 2012). Two questions guided the data analysis and interpretation: 1. How do students in a course based on the principles of civic-minded professionalism enact their civic-minded agency while working as instructional design consultants? 2. What challenges did these students experience in enacting their civic-minded agency and how did they overcome these challenges? The CMID framework The CMID framework (Yusop & Correia, 2012) was created as a response to the call for designers to critically reflect on the social aspect of their professional identities (Campbell, Schwier & Kenny, 2009). From that point of view, instructional design is seen as a “socially-constructed practice rather than a technology to be employed” that has “socially transformative power” to bring positive changes to society (Campbell, Schwier & Kenny, 2008, p. 3). Instructional designers are viewed as potential agents of social change who “act in purposeful, value-based ways with ethical knowledge, and in social relationships and contexts that have consequences in and for action” (Schwier et al, 2006, p. 76).Their views on the role of instructional designers as agents of change are shared and further extended in the CMID framework.This framework asserts that any instructional design work has broader implications in three interrelated contexts: micro, macro and mega. The micro context refers to a person’s immediate environments, such as his or her community, workplace or school; the macro context refers to a person’s extended environment, e.g., the district and country of residence, while the mega context refers to the global environment in which a person is immersed. Four qualities—beliefs, knowledge, skills and dispositions—characterize a civic-minded instructional designer as explained in Table 1. The context of this study The context of this study was a 3-credit postgraduate level instructional design course at a large research university in the Midwestern United States. Its aim was to teach the theories and practices of instructional design with an emphasis on IDT processes and consulting strategies, and it was designed to mimic a small, multiteam IDT consulting company offering professionallevel services free of charge. Instead of merely providing IDT services to any targeted group on any instructional-related issues, these students were required to offer consulting services and create instructional solutions for real-life social problems occurring in their immediate micro contexts. The instructor put a strong emphasis on providing services to socio-economically disadvantaged clients otherwise unable to acquire these services. Services were provided through community-based and nonprofit organizations based within 45 miles of the university and specifically serving community members of low socio-economic status, women and children, and elderly citizens. The students in this course acted uniquely as consultants and project managers. They were fully responsible for initiating first contacts with community partners, identifying potential projects to work on within the course objectives and time line, creating the consulting contract, and designing, developing and delivering appropriate instructional solutions. This strategy expanded the more common approach of having the instructor play the role of project manager (Wilson & Schwier, 2009). Delegating these roles to students allowed them to develop closer relationships and deeper communication with the client organizations. Because contracting and negotiating are also critical skills in consulting, students should ideally have first-hand experience in developing these skills as part of the course. Students were not required to create a project budget, but the instructor shared her own budgeting experiences with consulting projects to expose students to the concept. Students were also required to engage in continuous reflection that took place during weekly class meetings in which students reported progress and reassessed work strategies On becoming a civic-minded instructional designer 3 © 2013 British Educational Research Association and plans. This was the most important activity with respect to shaping their experiences and identities as civic-minded professionals. Research participants There were two categories of research participants in this study. The first was a group of four full-time graduate students: Marina, Julie, Rachel and Veronica; the other was a group of four representatives of each community organization the students worked with: Karen, Joanne, Michael and Katy. All names used are pseudonyms. All four students were female, ranging in age from 22 to 38 years. Three of them, Marina, Julie and Rachel, worked as teaching and/or research assistants. All had prior teaching experience and had taken at least a graduate course in IDT. Veronica, a student-collaborator, was an advanced doctoral student in IDT and an experienced instructional designer. She worked closely with Julie on sandbagging training, a project she was working on with one of the community organizations. The community organizations’ representatives were three females and one male with an age range of 25–55 years. Two of them, Karen and Joanne, worked at a nonprofit organization and had no prior knowledge of IDT processes. The other two, Michael and Katy, were experienced instructional designers working at a statewide public organization. The instructional design projects The students worked collaboratively with their community partners in three different design projects as presented in Table 2. These projects were not required to be fully fledged instructional Table 1: The beliefs, knowledge, skills and dispositions of a civic-minded instructional designer Beliefs Social interdependence A belief that his or her existence and profession are socially interdependent with public service (Sullivan, 2005) and that his or her design work has implications in broader social contexts. Social trustee of knowledge A belief that he or she is a “social trustee of knowledge” (Hatcher, 2008, p. 25), meaning a person who is held accountable to utilize his or her technical expertise to allow for the well-being of all members of a society. Agent of change A belief about the transformative power he or she has to produce positive changes in society (Campbell et al, 2009) by actively participating in dialogues, activities and social policies that affect public life. Knowledge Knowledge about social issues in micro contexts Knowledgeable and cares about social issues in his or her immediate environment. Knowledge about issues of cultural diversity Knowledgeable about and respectful towards diverse cultures. Skills Interpersonal skills The ability to interact with others, especially those from varied backgrounds. Participatory civic skills The ability to participate and take actions towards solving social problems. Teamwork skills The ability to work with others, including listening to and understanding others’ perspectives, to build consensus across diverse opinions, to engage in dialogues and to have strong relationships with others (Hatcher, 2008). Dispositions Public spiritedness Motivated and interested about the general welfare of society. Motivated to help others improve their lives Motivated and interested in helping others improve their lives. Make social goods (eg, education and access to technology) more equally distributed. Support the public role of the profession Understand that their professional work is the main platform to advance people’s lives. 4 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2013 British Educational Research Association design projects, but they did need to address a real instructional issue with social impact. More importantly they were required to benefit actual rather than hypothetical stakeholders, so they would partially or completely follow the different components of an instructional design process, depending on the community partners’ instructional needs. Methodology Ethnography is used to understand how civic-minded agency is enacted in the context of this study and the challenges faced during this enactment. The ethnographer (first author) assisted the course instructor (second author) on redesign of the graduate course based on the CMID framework. The ethnographer completely immersed herself in the participants’ lives by acting as a mentor, “external instructional consultant” and “friend of the class” who shared her insights and previous consulting experiences while simultaneously collecting and analyzing data. The selection of the four students and four community partners was based on a theoretical sampling strategy allowing selection of research participants involved in the phenomenon to be investigated (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This meant that the group was selected on the basis of their relevance to address the research questions and make a contribution to the conceptual framework development of this study. Data collection methods Consistent with the ethnographic nature of a prolonged field engagement, the data collection activity extended over the 9-month period during and after the course was in session. Four main Table 2: Summary of the instructional design projects, community partners and participants involved Project/project outcomes Project goals Community partner(s) Participants involved Role in the project Create an educational poster advising low-income, uninsured pregnant women to seek maternal health insurance To raise awareness of the importance of having maternity health insurance during and after pregnancy in order to avoid higher medical bills later A community action organization Marina Studentconsultant Karen Representative of the community partner Evaluate a group of teachers’ professional development training on using specific tools of a learning management system for online teaching and learning* To improve the training program so that teachers could use the technological tools effectively in teaching a group of struggling high school students in an online learning environment A statewide public television network Rachel Studentconsultant Michael and Katy Representatives of the community partner Design, develop and conduct practical on-site training on the proper sandbagging techniques To prepare volunteers of a community coalition with aspects of preplanning and sandbagging techniques in the event of natural disasters and recovery efforts A county-level coalition for disaster recovery volunteer organization Julie Studentconsultant Veronica Studentcollaborator Joanne Representative of the community partner *Note: While this project was not a fully pledged IDT project, it was accepted and undertaken because of its benefits to the actual stakeholders. IDT = Instructional Design and Technology. On becoming a civic-minded instructional designer 5 © 2013 British Educational Research Association data sources were used: participant observations, a focus group interview with the students, in-depth exit interviews with the students and their community partners, and analysis of courserelated documents including students’ written reflections, e-mail communications with class peers and community partners, and other relevant materials like brochures and project-specific websites. All observations were recorded in researchers’ journals containing reflective notes of observed phenomena, analysis of interactions between and among research participants, and documented descriptions of emergent codes and themes from the observations. Additionally, interviews were audiotaped and later transcribed for analysis. Finally, document analyses were conducted to gain a holistic understanding of the course and the students’ experiences as consultants in instructional design. Table 3 is an example of exit interview questions for all participants in the study.