It's important to address the science behind instructional design. For reasons unknown, programmed instruction (PI) in eLearning seems to be all but abandoned in much of the learning content I review. In my opinion, this is a flaw in instructional design and worse, is only supported by popular eLearning development tools, because they omit this capability. Thus begging the question:"Where's the beef?"
Gagne actually pioneered this mode of instruction in the mid 1960s. For those unfamiliar, programmed instruction models assess a learner's needs through some form of testing and loop back, branch-forward, or multi-path based on performance to pass/fail criteria. More robust PI models incorporate both pretesting an posttesting. The biggest advantage to this design model is that delivery of content is customized to a learner's needs because only filtered content is delivered (based on what the learner did not pass). In essence, a form of needs assessment is built into course delivery and the user experience. How cool is that?
Development tools like Authorware or KnowledgeTRACK were great at facilitating this mode of design. Unfortunately these tools are no longer available, (in all honesty - they were cumbersome to use.) I certainly don’t see this in most of the Articulate or Captivate content I’ve seen lately.
Meanwhile, social and Learning 2.0 suites are starting to bake PI functionality into learning path where not only a test can assess performance, but a virtual instructor or coach can pass or fail. Others even advance the learner automatically if they simply complete a task as instructed. More of such suites are capable of housing SCORM modules or acting as a friendlier front-face to what is typically presented in the learning path of a traditional learning management system (LMS). For an example, check this one it out by Q2 Learning at: http://www.q2learning.com/ . None-the-less, this is a methodology we should revive. Take another look at the process illustrated above and decide for yourself.
Have a comment or question? Leave one and I will get back to you.
