Instructional Design

Definition

What is instructional design? It is a term that confuses not only the general public but even many in higher education. To bring some clarity about the field, also known as instructional system design or instructional systems development, I turn to Smith and Ragan, who, in their 3rd edition of Introduction to Instructional Design, write that, “instructional design refers to the systematic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources, and evaluation” (2005, p.4). The authors proceed to explain in detail both design and instruction, and surface several terms such as education, training, and teaching, which, in many cases, are used interchangeably with instruction.

InstructionalDesign site defines the field as, “The process by which instruction is improved through the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of learning experiences.”

The Association for Talent Development’s Talent Development Body of Knowledge defines instructional design as,

“the practice of creating learning experiences to support learning. It is a systems approach to analyzing, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating any instructional experience based on the belief that training is most effective when it gives learners a clear statement of what they must be able to do after training and how their performance will be evaluated.”