Unconventional Roles and Activities Identified by Instructional Designers

Year 2010, Volume: 1 Issue: 2, 134 - 147, 01.06.2010

Richard A. Schwier Jay R. Wilson

Abstract

Students complete courses or entire programs in instructional design (ID) and enter the professional arena confident they are prepared to wrestle with the complexities and demands of ID. What many of those fresh to the profession discover is that in addition to applying what they learned in school, they are called upon to carry out a number of additional tasks, often in areas where they have no training or previous experience. This paper reports on the results of an investigation carried out with 22 instructional designers practicing in post-secondary institutions in Canada and the United States. The purpose was to reveal the aspects of professional practice that instructional designers felt were important, but that were outside the traditional boundaries and training of instructional design. Through focus groups and e-mail discussions, we identified several roles that instructional designers described as important, but were peripheral to the traditional standards of practice and competencies in instructional design.

Keywords

Instructional design, ID, Professional practice, Experience, Interviews, Research

References

• Boling, E., Gibbons, A., Ertmer, P., Schwier, R. Wilson, B., & Wilson, J. (2009, April) How are designers taught to do what they do? Multiple approaches to masters-level design education. Special panel and poster sessions American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference, San Diego, CA.
• Brill, J., Bishop, M., & Walker, A. (2006). The competencies and characteristics required of an effective project manager: a web-based Delphi study. Educational Technology Research and Development, 54, 2, 115–140.
• Campbell, K., Schwier, R., & Kenny, R. (2009). The critical, relational practice of instructional design in higher education: An emerging model of change agency. Educational Technology Research and Development, 57(5), 645-664.
• Correia, A., Yusop, F., Wilson, J., & Schwier, R. (2010, April). A comparative case study of approaches to authentic learning in instructional design at two universities. American Educational Research Association, Denver, Colorado.
• Cox, S. & Osguthorpe, R. (2003, May / June). How do instructional design professionals spend their time? TechTrends, 47(3), 45-47, 29.
• Dick, W. ,Carey, L., & Carey, J. (2009). Systematic design of instruction (7th ed.). Toronto: Allyn & Bacon.
• Dooley, K., Lindner, J., Telg, R., Moore, L., Lundy, L., & Irani, T. (2007). Road map to measuring distance education instructional design competencies. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 8(2), 151-159.
• Gibbons, A. (2003, September / October). What and how do designers design: A theory of design structure. TechTrends, 47(5), 22-27.
• Greer, M. (1994). ID project management, Tools and techniques for instructional designers and developers (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
• Gustafson, K., & Branch, R. (2002). What is instructional design? In R.A. Reiser, & J.V. Dempsey (Eds.). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (pp. 16-25). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
• IBSTIPI (2000). Instructional design competencies. State College, PA: International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction. Retrieved from http://www.ibstpi.org/downloads/InstructionalDesignCompetencies.pdf and http://www.scribd.com/doc/25348521/IBSTPI-Standards-for-Instructional-Design
• Jonassen, D., Boling, E., Gibbons, A., Parrish, P., & Schwier, R. (2008, November). Design is not systematic: Alternative perspectives on design. Annual conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Orlando, Florida, November 4-8.
• Kenny, R., Zhang Z., Schwier, R., & Campbell, K. (2005). A review of what instructional designers do: Questions answered and questions not asked. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 31(1). 9-26.
• Morrison, G., Ross, S., & Kemp, J. (2010). Designing effective instruction (6th ed.). Toronto: Wiley.
• Richey, R., Fields, D., & Foxon, M. (with Roberts, R., Spannaus, T., & Spector, J.M.) (2001). Instructional design competencies: The standards (3rd ed.). Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology (ED453803).
• Rowland, G. (1992). What do instructional designers actually do? An initial investigation of expert practice. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 5(2), 65-86.
• Rowland, G. (2006). Systems designing: Responding to the limitations of strategic planning. Educational Technology, 46(2), 7- 10.
• Schwier, R., Campbell, K., & Kenny, R. (2007). Instructional designers' perceptions of their interpersonal, professional, institutional and societal agency: Tales of change and community. In M. Keppell (Ed.), Instructional design: Case studies in communities of practice (pp. 1-18). Hershey, PA: Idea Group.
• Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2005). Instructional design (3rd ed.). Toronto: Wiley.
• Solomonson, W.L. (2008). Toward fluent instructional design in the context of people. Performance Improvement, 47(7), 12-19.
• Spector, J., Klein, J., Reiser, R., Sims, R., & de la Teja, I. (2006, April). Competencies and standards for instructional design and educational technology discussion paper for ITFORUM, 17-21.
• Williams vanRooij, S. (2009). Project management in instructional design: ADDIE is not enough. British Journal of Educational Technology. Retrieved from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122473190/PDFSTART.
• Correspondence: Richard A. Schwier, Professor, Curriculum Studies, College of Education,
• University of Saskatchewan, 28 Campus Dr., Saskatoon, SK. S7N0X1, Canada.