Instructional Design Models: Tonia A. Dousay
Instructional Design Models: Tonia A. Dousay
Tonia A. Dousay
Historical Context
The field of Learning and Instructional Design Technology (LIDT) has
had many periods of rapid development. Reiser (2001) noted that
training programs during World War II sparked the efforts to identify
efficient, systematic approaches to learning and instructional design.
It would be another 20 years before the first models emerged, but the
1960s and 1970s gave way to extracting instructional technology and
design processes from conversations about multimedia development
(Reiser, 2017), which in turn produced more than three dozen
different instructional design models referenced in the literature
between 1970 and 2005 (Branch & Dousay, 2015; Gustafson, 1991,
1991; Gustafson & Branch, 1997, 2002). These models help designers,
and sometimes educational stakeholders, simplify the complex reality
of instructional design and apply generic components across multiple
contexts (Gustafson & Branch, 2002), thus creating standardized
approaches to design within an organization. In turn, Molenda (2017)
noted that the standardization of processes and terminology triggered
interest in the field. Thus, an interesting relationship exists between
defining the field of instructional design and perpetuating its
existence. As designers seek to justify their role in education–whether
K-12, higher education, or industry–they often refer to existing models
or generate a new model to fit their context. These new models then
become a reference point for other designers and/or organizations.
Notice the use of the phrase process rather than model. For
instructional design purposes, a process is defined as a series of steps
necessary to reach an end result. Similarly, a model is defined as a
specific instance of a process that can be imitated or emulated. In
other words, a model seeks to personalize the generic into distinct
functions for a specific context. Thus, when discussing the
Models
Because there are so many different ID models, how do we choose
which one to use? In framing this conversation, the Survey of ID
models (Branch & Dousay, 2015) serves as a foundation, but by no
means should be the sole reference. A total of 34 different
instructional design models (see Table 1 for a summary) have been
covered in the Survey text since its first edition, and this list does not
include every model. Still, this list of models is useful in providing a
concise guide to some of the more common approaches to
instructional design.
Table 1
Other ID Models
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Jeroen Breman, Northwest Lineman College, for the OKT-
model recommendation.
Application Exercises
References
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Further Resources