Most of you in IT Forum are already minimally familiar with instructional theory. And you are aware that this knowledge is central to helping you improve the quality of your instructional designs and ultimately your teaching and training. A deep understanding of the nature of instructional theory is important to both individual designers’ growth and the growth of our field more generally. However, vague and inconsistent language is impeding such growth. Different theorists use the same term to refer to different things and different terms to refer to the same things. This is confusing for all of us, from beginning graduate students to expert designers. When a discipline is young, it is natural for there to be such inconsistent language. We propose that Instructional Theory has now reached a level of development where a common knowledge base with a consistent terminology would greatly facilitate the future development of knowledge in this important area.

We would like to invite you into a dialogue about the specific language of instructional design and some new ideas we’ve developed about how to describe our field. We begin by defining instruction, and then discuss the need for building a common knowledge base about instruction. Next, we introduce concepts and terms for various kinds and parts of instructional theories, in an attempt to build a common knowledge base. We hope that this will be useful as a foundation upon which instructional theorists and researchers can build, and whether you are a novice or expert in our field, we very much want your input on these constructs and terms. These will be the foundations of our upcoming text, Instructional-design theories and models, Vol. III: Building a common knowledge base.

A definition of instruction. There has been a distinction recently in the literature between instruction and construction, with the implication that instruction is necessarily done to learners (i.e., learners are passive), whereas construction is done by learners (i.e., learners are active). However, a principal tenet of constructivism is that people can only learn by constructing their own knowledge – that learning requires active manipulation of the material to be learned and cannot occur passively. Our concern is with how to help learners learn, which means identifying ways to help learners construct knowledge. Therefore, if instruction is to foster any learning at all, it must foster construction. Instruction is not instruction if it does not foster construction. Furthermore, if construction is what the learner does, then we need a different term for what a teacher (or other agent) does to foster construction, and “instruction” has commonly been used more than any other term to convey that meaning. Therefore, we define instruction as anything that is done purposely to facilitate learning. It includes constructivist methods and self-instruction, as well as more traditional views of instruction, such as lecture and direct instruction.

The need. Volume II of Instructional-Design Theories and Models was a small sample of the wide variety of information-age instructional-design theories that had been created by 1998. That book made it evident that many instructional theories were constructed with little regard for prior theories. Until theorists begin to build upon each other’s contributions, the field will remain in its infancy. The main purpose of Volume III, then, is to help instructional theorists and researchers to build a common knowledge base about instruction.

To build (or to understand) a common knowledge base about instruction, it is helpful to understand the nature of such a knowledge base. However, there are many important things to know about instruction, including what an instructional product itself should be like, the process by which it should be designed and built, how it should be implemented, how it should be evaluated, how its effects (e.g., learning) should be assessed, what content should be instructed, how people learn, and the interrelationships among all these kinds of knowledge about instruction. It is also helpful to distinguish between design theory and descriptive theory. Each of these is discussed next.

Design theory is different from descriptive theory in that it is goal oriented and normative – it identifies good methods for accomplishing goals – whereas descriptive theory describes cause-effect relationships (which are usually probabilistic, meaning that the cause does not always result in the effect, especially in the social sciences). Design theory is aimed at facilitating generative outcomes – that is, it assists in the creation of something – while descriptive theory seeks to describe what already exists. We very much agree with Nelson and Stolterman’s (2003) notions of design expertise. They recognize that there are certainly fields of design expertise such as instructional design or educational design or architecture. But they also indicate that all designers share some similar field experiences: “It is even more important to emphasize that every informally recognized designer has a similar field of expertise. It goes without saying that every designer needs knowledge and skills, concerning materials, tools, methods, languages, traditions, styles, etc., in his or her specific field.” (p. 25). Their book, The Design Way, is not about the particular knowledge and skills, but is indeed about those areas for instructional designers.

Some people do not like the term “theory” for such generative knowledge. Terms that they prefer include: ”method,” “model,” “technology,” “technique,” “strategy,” “guidance,” and “heuristic.” However, none of these terms captures the full scope of this kind of knowledge, which includes not only methods (or models and heuristics), but also when and when not to use each method. We have found no other term that fits as well as “design theory.” Second, these two types of knowledge (descriptive and instrumental) are widely recognized as the two major alternatives (see, e.g., the famous distinction by Simon, 1996, between the natural sciences and the sciences of the artificial), and hence are “coordinate” (subordinate to, or kinds of, the same concept). Third, the term “theory” has been used for decades to characterize the instrumental knowledge base in several fields, and in instruction its use goes back at least to Bruner (1966) and Gagné (1985). For these three reasons, we find it appropriate to refer to each of the two basic kinds of knowledge as theory, and to the instrumental kind of knowledge as design theory. Consequently, we offer the following definitions.

Instructional design-theory is a set of design theories that pertain to various aspects of instruction. One perspective is that those aspects include:

• what the instruction should be like, which could be called instructional-act design-theory (DT), or instructional-program DT or instructional-product DT,

• what the process of creating the instructional plans should be like, which could be called instructional-planning DT,[1]

• what the process of creating the instructional resources should be like, which could be called instructional-building DT,[2]

• what the process of preparing for implementation of the instruction should be like, which could be called instructional-implementation DT,

• what the process for evaluating the instruction should be like (summative and formative), which could be called instructional-evaluation DT.

We have not included instructional analysis as a kind of design theory because we believe it is an integral part of each of these five kinds of design theories. Hence, we acknowledge that it is an important kind of design theory, but we view it as a component of each of these five kinds of design theory.

These five kinds of design theories represent an entirely new and unambiguous way of referring to the various sorts of theories that inform our practice of the overall process and products of instructional design. A graphic may help to see the interrelationships among these kinds of theories.

In addition, we feel that a good analogy here would be that of the building process that results in homes, offices, skyscrapers, hospitals and many other buildings. First, there is a body of theory about architecture. These theories are about the buildings themselves, about the products. They study Gaudi’s buildings and his use of art in the form of everyday structures, for example. This is most akin to instructional-act DT. Then there is a separate body of literature which looks at theories of architectural process – that is what architects do, how they go about the business of creating and producing a blueprint. This is most akin to instructional¹-planning DT. The architect’s blueprint is taken to a builder, and the builder then translates that blueprint into a physical manifestation in the form of a final home, or townhouse, or shopping mall. This process is guided by design theories as well, which are most akin to instructional-building DT. Next, the people who will live in and maintain the building may receive some training in how to use and maintain the heating/cooling system, the kitchen appliances, and so forth. This is akin to instructional-implementation DT. Finally, as a building is lived in, worked in, or shopped in, we and others will draw some conclusions about it. Do the air systems work well, or are you always too hot or too cold? If this can be fixed, we might see this as formative evaluation. If not, it might be considered, unfortunately, a summative evaluation of the effectiveness of the building. This, of course, is most like instructional-evaluation DT.

In addition to these kinds of instructional DT, there are various other kinds of DT that are related to instruction. They include the following.

Student-assessment design-theory is guidance for assessing student learning. To the extent that student assessment is integrated with instruction, it would make sense to combine student assessment DT with all five kinds of instructional DTs: integrating guidance about the nature of assessment with guidance about the nature of the instructional act, integrating guidance for the process for developing assessments with guidance for the processes for planning and building instruction, integrating guidance for implementing assessments with guidance for implementing instruction, and integrating guidance for evaluating assessments with guidance for evaluating instruction.

Curriculum design-theory concerns what should be learned – the content of instruction – including higher-order thinking skills and metacognitive skills, in contrast to instructional-act DT, which concerns how it should be learned (Snelbecker, 1974, and Chapter 1 of Volume II of this book series). For example, a curriculum design-theory may address the inclusion of more racial and gender diversity in American History. To the extent that “what to teach” is interdependent with “how to teach it,” it would make sense to combine curriculum DT with all four kinds of instructional DTs. No wonder many departments in schools of education are called “Curriculum and Instruction.”

Learning theory is descriptive theory rather than design (or instrumental) theory, for it describes the learning process. For example, schema theory and information-processing theory describe processes that are believed to occur within learners’ heads. If they identified methods for helping those processes to occur, they would be instructional-act DTs. Learning theory may provide an understanding of why a certain method of instruction (in an instructional-act DT) works so well, and hence a rationale for using it, but an instructional-act DT can as easily lead to the development of learning theory (to explain it) as a learning theory can lead to the development of an instructional-act DT (to apply it).

Learning Sciences is a term that has become popular recently. The term, Instructional Science, has also been used, and there is a journal by that name. Based on those labels, one would expect that the learning sciences are dedicated to the development of learning theory, and that instructional science is dedicated to the development of instructional DT. However, in practice most learning scientists are interested in the development of knowledge about both learning (descriptive theory) and instruction (design theory). An operational definition of learning sciences would perhaps be a hybrid discipline that includes learning theory and instructional-act DT. It also seems that most learning scientists are not interested in instructional-planning DT, instructional-building DT, instructional-evaluation DT, or curriculum DT. There is some interest in student-assessment DT. The field of learning sciences is akin to cognitive science in that it is purposely multidisciplinary and not so interested in aims as in the use of certain kinds of instructional methods to shed light on certain kinds of learning processes.

Interrelationships among all the kinds of theories related to instruction are powerful and systemic. In many cases, it is most helpful for a theory to be a hybrid of several of these kinds of theories, as we have already mentioned. Such hybrids have been common from the early pioneers (e.g., Dewey, Skinner, Gagné, and Ausubel) to recent theorists (e.g., Bransford, McCombs & Whisler, Perkins, and Schank).

In spite of the importance of all these kinds of theories and the relationships among them, Volume III focuses on instructional-act DT, not just because it would be too large an undertaking to do justice to all of the above theories and their interrelationships, but more importantly because instructional-act DT is in dire need of a common knowledge base. Since the term “instructional theory” is commonly used to refer to what we have called “instructional-act design-theory,” we will use this simpler term for the remainder of this paper.

As mentioned earlier, instructional theorists often use different terms to refer to the same constructs and the same term to refer to different constructs. This is confusing for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students, and it is the most obvious indicator of the lack of a common knowledge base. Therefore, as a first step to building a common knowledge base for instructional theory, it would be helpful to reach some consensus on constructs about the nature of instructional theory and terms for those constructs.

Perhaps the most important construct is defined as “all things that are done to facilitate learning,” for those are the tools that an instructional theory offers to accomplish its goals. The next most important construct is defined as “all factors that help one to decide when each of those tools should and should not be used.” All elements of any instructional theory can be categorized as one or the other of these two constructs.

1. Instructional method: Anything that is done purposely to facilitate learning or human development.

2. Instructional situation: All aspects of an instructional context that are useful for deciding when and when not to use a particular instructional method. Each individual aspect of the context is referred to as a “situationality.” Collectively, they are the “situation.”

Instructional methods can vary in several ways, each of which is an important construct for instructional theories. They are as follows.

While this is really a continuum, it is often thought of as having three major levels (van Merriënboer, 1997):

1.1.1 Micro: Instruction on an individual skill or understanding, such as a sequence of examples and practice.

1.1.2 Meso: Instruction on a single unit (or cluster of related skills and understandings), such as a sequence of types of cases for a complex cognitive task.

1.1.3 Macro: Instruction on a course (or even a curriculum), such as a sequence of different types of complex tasks.

1.2 Generality of a method: The breadth of instructional situations in which a method should be used.

This is a continuum that ranges from high to low or universal to local. Other descriptors include pervasive, common, restricted, rare, narrow, and local.

1.3 Precision of a method: The level of detail of the description of a method.

Precision is a reflection of the componential nature of methods. A description of a method typically can be broken down into more precise descriptions of the method for facilitating learning. While this characteristic is commonly referred to as a general-versus-detailed distinction among descriptions of a method (or a general-to-detailed continuum of descriptions of a method), “general” can be confused with the generality of a method itself (versus its description – see 1.2), so we prefer the term “precision” of a description of a method (imprecise-to-precise continuum). The level of precision is influenced by three constructs:

1.3.1 Parts: More precise descriptions that describe pieces that, when combined, make up the method.

1.3.2 Kinds: More precise descriptions that describe alternatives from which one must choose in using the method.

1.3.3 Criteria: More precise descriptions that provide criteria for making a decision regarding the method.

1.4 Power of a method: The amount a method contributes toward the attainment of the learning goal for which it was selected.

Using any particular instructional method does not ensure that the learning goal will be attained, for there are many factors that influence whether or not learning occurs. Some methods are more powerful than others in fostering learning. Every method contributes a certain amount to the probability that learning will occur. The power contribution of any given method can vary from very low (or even zero) to very high (though never reaching a probability of 1.0).

1.5 Consistency of a method: The reliability with which a method contributes its power toward the attainment of the learning goal for which it was selected within the situations for which it is appropriate.

Whereas power is similar to the concept of between-group variance in statistics, consistency is related to the concept of within-group variance. A method may be highly consistent in contributing a given amount of power toward the attainment of a learning goal within the situations for which it is appropriate, or it may be highly inconsistent in the amount of power (or probability) it contributes. It other words, the probability that the method contributes toward learning may be very high in some situations, but only moderately high in other situations for which it is still appropriate to use. The consistency of a method (or the variability of its power) within appropriate situations may range from low to high.

Regarding generality and precision, it is helpful to note that the more precise (or detailed) a method is, the less general (or more situational) it is.

Instructional situations, like instructional methods, can vary in several ways, each of which is an important construct for instructional theories. They are as follows.

2.1 Values: The elements of instruction that are deemed important by an instructional theory but are a matter of opinion rather than a matter that can be empirically verified.

The complete set of values underlying a theory of instruction represents a philosophy of instruction. It is helpful to ensure alignment of values about instruction across all stakeholders. Therefore, values about instruction should be made explicit, for every instructional theory, to aid in selection of an appropriate instructional theory. The values of the designer are less important than the values of the “owners” of the instruction, the teachers, the learners, and the other beneficiaries (e.g., employers and communities). We have identified three major kinds of instructional values.

2.1.1 Values about goals: Statements about what learning outcomes are valued philosophically (opinion).

These stand in contrast to goals that are identified empirically through a needs analysis.

2.1.2 Values about priorities: Statements about what criteria should be used to judge the success of the instruction.

These were formerly called “instructional outcomes” in Volumes I and II. They address the relative importance of the effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal of the instruction as criteria for judging how good the instructional methods and guidelines are.

2.1.3 Values about methods: Statements about what instructional methods are valued from a philosophical point of view (opinion).

These stand in contrast to methods that are selected empirically based on research results.

2.1.3 Values about power: Statements about who is given the power to make decisions about goals, criteria, and methods.

While values about power could be viewed as subcategories of the three other kinds of instructional values, we believe power is such an important issue that it deserves a category of its own. Learner empowerment is an integral part of the whole concept of an information-age, learner-centered paradigm of instruction (see Volume II), but different amounts of empowerment are often appropriate for different situations, making empowerment a method variable (that spans goals, criteria, and methods), as well as a value.

2.2 Conditions: All other factors that influence the selection or effects of methods.

The word “context” has a similar meaning, but not all aspects of context influence when a method of instruction should and should not be used. For example, one could find themselves in a context of low socio-economic standing and find that this situation very much impacts their instructional method, or it may not as many things are taught in similar ways regardless of student SES or community poverty. On the other hand, there are times when context is going to be very important and will affect our instructional choices We have identified four major kinds of instructional conditions.

2.2.1 Content: The nature of what is to be learned, defined comprehensively to include not only knowledge, skills, and understandings, but also higher-order thinking skills, metacognitive skills, attitudes, values, and so forth.

2.2.2 Learner: The nature of the learner, including prior knowledge, learning styles, learning strategies, motivations, interests, and so forth.

2.2.3 Learning environment: The nature of the learning environment, which includes human resources, material resources, organizational arrangements, and so forth.

2.2.4 Instructional development constraints: The resources available for designing, developing, and implementing the instruction, including money, calendar time, and person-hours.

While each of these constructs can and should be further broken down into additional constructs, if instructional theorists will use these consensually developed constructs and terms in describing their instructional theories, that would represent an important step in building a foundation upon which instructional theorists and researchers can build, and it would help practitioners and graduate students understand the knowledge available to them. This would make an important contribution to developing a common knowledge base about instruction.

We are particularly interested in your reactions to: (1) the goal of trying to create a common knowledge base with a common terminology at this point in the development of the field, (2) the specific constructs included here, and (3) the specific terms used here for those constructs. If there is anything you don’t like (goal, constructs, or terms), please offer suggestions to ITForum for discussion.

Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press.

Gagné, R. M. (1985). The Conditions of Learning and Theory of Instruction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Snelbecker, G. E. (1974). Learning theory, instructional theory, and psychoeducational design. New York: McGraw Hill.

1Sometimes “instructional design” is used with this meaning, and it is one part of the ISD process.
Sometimes “instructional development” is used with this meaning, and it is another part of the ISD process.