Iteration in instructional design: an empirical study of the specification of training simulators

Abstract

Instructional design and development methods prescribe how specifications for advanced instructional products, such as training simulators, should be designed. In practice, however, the design process is disturbed by many 'pragmatic' factors, such as conflicting constraints, interference from management, personnel changes in design teams and technological progress leading to new possibilities. Prescriptive models recognise the iterative nature of the design process, but they do not prescribe when and how iteration should take place. The empirical studies in this thesis regard the design of training simulator specifications. In these studies all subjects iterate, but the number of iterations varies considerably between subjects and there is no relation with the quality of the resulting designs. Apparently, different design styles -with more or less iteration- can lead to good results. The empirical studies also show that novice instructional designers can be adequately supported by providing systematic design methods in combination with specific measures that help them deal with iteration. Both descriptive studies in the literature and the studies in this thesis show that iteration during the instructional design process is unavoidable and difficult to deal with. Having to iterate is not necessarily bad. On the contrary, iteration can improve the result and there are even indications that truly innovative design requires a good deal of iteration. So what designers need is support to deal with iteration. Developing such support requires more insight into the different reasons for iteration, and more insight into when iteration is desirable and when it is not. Events that can trigger iteration are listed, and a number of measures that can help designers to deal with iteration during the design process is proposed. These measures include explicitly structuring the design process by using systematic methods and defining design cycles, explicitly planning triggers for iteration such as decision points and review moments, specific advice regarding dealing with iteration, and forms of knowledge management that make it easier for designers to iterate. The list of triggers for iteration, and the proposed measures to support iteration provide a common language to discuss iteration in instructional design and can serve as a basis for more research. For practitioners the descriptions of triggers for iteration might be interesting because it can give them more insight into, and grip on, this difficult aspect of their design task.