CHAPTER 3 CONDUCTING A GOAL ANALYSIS

Objectives

·        Classify instructional design in the following domains; intellectual, skill, verbal information, psychomotor skill, attitude.

·         Perform a goal analysis to identify the major steps required to accomplish an instructional goal. 

Background

The major purpose of instructional analysis is to identify the skills and knowledge that should be included in our instruction, and how the designer determines the major components of instruction trough goal analysis. It will focus on goal analysis procedures.

Concepts

An instructional analysis is a set of procedures that, when applied to an instructional goals, result in the identification of the relevant steps for performing a goal and the subordinate skills required for a student to achieve the goal.

There are two steps of goal analysis; the first is to identify the goal statement, and the second is to identify and sequence the major steps required.

Example:

1.      Given a list of cities, name the state of which each is the capital.

2.      Given a bank statement and a checkbook, balance the checkbook.

3.      Set up and operate a video camera

4.      Choose to make lifestyle decisions that reflect positive lifelong health concerns.

   

Verbal Information

-          Require the learners to provide specific responses to relatively specific questions.

-          We can spot a verbal information goal by the verb is used.

Intellectual Skills

Intellectual skills are forming concepts, applying rules, and solving problems. So the learners can classify things according to labels and characteristic, can apply the rules, and can select and apply a variety of rules in order to solve the problems.

Psychomotor Skills

-          Involves the coordination of mental and physical activity.

-          The characteristic are the learners must execute muscular actions, with or without equipment, to achieve specified result.

Attitude

-          Tendency to make particular choices or decisions.

-          Can be viewed as influencing the learner to choose.

Goal Analysis Procedures.

-          The best technique in analyzing a goal is to describe, in step-by-step fashion, exactly what a person would be doing when performing the goal. –

-          Goal analysis is the visual display of the specific steps the learner would do when performing the instructional goal. –

-          As you analyze your goal, you may find that have difficulty knowing exactly how much should be included in each step.

-          Doing the goal analysis would be similar to preparing an outline of topic contained in the goal, but there is no sequence of steps per se.  

-          In summary, goal analysis for intellectual and psychomotor skill is an analysis of the steps to be performed; for a verbal information goal, it is a list of the major topics to be learned, and either approach is used depending on the nature of an attitudinal goal.

Analysis of Substeps

-          Doing a goal analysis for each step as originally did for the goal itself.

-          It is better to identify too many steps rather that too few.

-          Should stay with the more general statement of the step in the goal.

Summary

-          Several steps in the goal analysis:

o   To classify the goal into one of the four domains of learning (intellectual, skill, verbal information, psychomotor skill, attitude)

o   To identify the major steps that learners must perform to demonstrate they have achieved the goal.

-          Intellectual skill and psychomotor goals, as well as most attitudes, a sequential diagram of the steps to be taken is appropriate.

-          Initial product should be viewed as a draft and should be subjected to evaluation and refinement.

-          The final product of goal analysis is a diagram of skills.

CHAPTER 2 ASSESSING NEEDS TO IDENTIFY INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL(S)

Background

Two basic methods are used to identify instructional goals: the subject matter expert approach and the performance technology approach.

SME emphasizes the communication of information from instructor to student in the instructional process.

Instructional designers favor the performance technology approach, where instructional goals are set in response to the problems or opportunities. Goals are usually stated as skills, knowledge, and need.

The purpose is to show that everyone wins when instructional provide learners with skills necessary to solve an organizational problem or to take advantage of an opportunity.

In summary, instructional goals ideally derived through a process of needs assessment that establishes rather broad indications of a problem that can be solved by providing instruction. Then an analysis of that goal is undertaken, either in their context of a curriculum or job. As a result, more refined specific statements emerge that focus on what learners will be able to do and the context in which they will be able to do it.

   

Concepts

Performance analysis

A performance analysis is a study conducted to determine the exact nature of an organizational performance problem and how it can be resolved.

The purpose of a performance analysis study is to acquire information on each of components in the model in order to verify problems and identify possible solution.

The outcome of performance analysis study is clear description a problem in terms of failure to achieve desired organizational result and the corresponding desired and actual employee behaviors, evidence of the causes of the problem, and suggested cost-effective solution.        

Clarifying Instructional goals

To analyze a vague goal, first write it down. Next, sort through goal. As a last step, examine the goal statement and ask yourself. You have developed one or more goal statements that collectively represent the achievement of an important goal. An analysis should be undertaken to identify specific performance outcomes that are implied by the goal.

Learners, context, and tools     

Indicate, 1) who the learners are, 2) the context in which they will use the skills, and 3) the tools that will be available.

Criteria for establishing instructional goals

Any selection of instructional goals must be done in terms the following concerns:

1.      Will the development of this instruction solve the problem that led to the need for it?

2.      Are these goals acceptable to those who must approve this instructional development effort?

3.      Are the sufficient people and time to complete the development of instructional for this goal?

Examples

The examples are based on an identified problem, need assessment activities, and a prescribed solution to the problem.

Summary

Instructional goals are clear statements of behaviors that learners are to demonstrate as a result of instruction. Instructional goals are selected and refined through a rational process that requires answering questions about a particular problem and need, about the clarify of the goal statements, and about availability of recourses to design and develop the instruction.       

THE SYTEMATIC DESIGN OF INSTRUCTION

Chapter 1       Introduction to instructional design

The Dick and Carey systems approach model for designing instruction.

The instructional process or teaching traditionally involved instructors, learners, and textbooks. The content to be learned was contained in the text, and it was the instructor's responsibility to "teach" that content to the learners. Teaching interpreted as getting content from the text into the heads of learners in such a way that they could retrieve the information for a test. By using this model, the way to improve instruction is to improve the instructor (i.e., to require the instructor to acquire more knowledge and to learn more methods for conveying it to learners).

A more contemporary view of instruction is that it is a systematic process in which every component (i.e., teacher, learners, materials, and learning environment) is crucial to successful learning. This perspective is usually referred to as the systems point of view, and advocates of this position typically use the systems approach to design instruction.

A system is technically a set of interrelated parts, all of which work together toward a defined goal. The parts of the system depend on each other for input and output, and the entire system uses feedback to determine if its desired goal has been reached. If it has not, then the system is modified until it does reach the goal. The most easily understood systems are those we create rather than those that occur naturally.

The instructional process itself can be viewed as a system. The purpose of the system is to bring about learning. The components of the system are the learners, the instructor, the instructional materials, and the learning environment. These components interact in order to achieve the goal.

The result of using the systems view of instruction is to see the important role of all the components in the process. They must all interact effectively, just as the parts in a heating or cooling system must interact effectively in order to bring about the desired outcomes. There is not an overemphasis of any one component in the system, but a determination of the exact contribution of each one to the desired outcome. And it is clear that there must be both an assessment of the effectiveness of the system in bringing about learning and a mechanism to make changes if learning fails to occur.

Thus far, our discussion of the instructional process has focused on the interactive component of the process-namely, the time instructors and learners come together with the hope that learning will occur.

Instruction is seen as organizing and providing sets of information and activities that guide, support, and augment students' internal mental processes. Learning has occurred when students have incorporated new information into their memories that enables them to master new knowledge and skills. Gagné further develops cognitive views of learning and instruction in later editions of The Conditions of Learning (1970, 1977, 1984).

Components of the Systems Approach Model

-          ASSESS NEEDS TO lDENTIFY GOAL(S)

Determine what it is that you want learners to be able to do when they have completed your instruction.

-          CONDUCT INSTRUCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Determine what people are doing when they perform that goal.

-          ANALYZE LEARNERS AND CONTEXTS

Analyze the instructional goal; there is a parallel analysis of the learners, the context in which they will learn the skills, and the context in which they will use them.

-          WRITE PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

Write specific statements of what the learners will be able to do when they complete the instruction.

-          DEVELOP ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS

Develop assessments that are parallel to and measure the learners' ability to perform what you described in the objectives.

-          DEVELOP INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

The strategy includes sections on pre-instructional activities, presentation of information, practice and feedback, testing, and follow-through activities.

-          DEVELOP AND SELECT INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Such as instructor's guides, student modules, overhead transparencies, videotapes, computer-based multimedia formats, and web pages for distance learning.

-          DESIGN AND CONDUCT TBE FORMATIVE EVALUATION OF INSTRUCTION

Evaluations are conducted to collect data that are used to identify how to improve the instruction.

-          REVISE INSTRUCTION

Revisions of the instruction to make it a more effective instructional tool.

Systematically designed instruction requires learners to interact actively with the instructional materials rather than simply allowing them to read the materials passively. The learners are asked to perform various types of learning tasks and receive feedback on that performance.

The systems approach to the design of instruction includes the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of instruction.

The systems approach is basically a design process, whereas instructors, modules, computers, and televisions are delivery mechanisms. These delivery mechanisms can be used with one or many learners at the same time. A major part of the design process is to determine how the instruction can be delivered most effectively.

WHY USE THE SYSTEMS APPROACH?

The first is the focus, at the outset, on what learners are to know or be able to do when the instruction is concluded. Without this precise statement, subsequent planning and implementation steps can become unclear and ineffective.

A second reason for the success of the systems approach is the careful linkage between each component, especially the relationship between the instructional strategy and the desired learning outcomes. Instruction is specifically targeted on the skills and knowledge to be taught and supplies the appropriate conditions for the learning of these outcomes. Stated another way, instruction does not consist of a range of activities only some of which may be related to what is to be learned.

The third and perhaps most important reason for the success of the systems approach is that it is an empirical and replicable process. Instruction is designed not for one delivery, but for use on as many occasions as possible with as many learners as possible. Because it is reusable, it is worth the time and effort to evaluate and revise it. In the process of systematically designing instruction, data are collected to determine what part of the instruction is not working, and it is revised until it does work.