Instructional design

Instructional design (ID), also known as instructional systems design (ISD), is the practice of systematically designing, developing and delivering instructional materials and experiences, both digital and physical, in a consistent and reliable fashion toward an efficient, effective, appealing, engaging and inspiring acquisition of knowledge. The process consists broadly of determining the state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition. The outcome of this instruction may be directly observable and scientifically measured or completely hidden and assumed. There are many instructional design models but many are based on the ADDIE model with the five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Robert M. Gagné is considered one of the founders of ISD due to the great influence his work, The Conditions of Learning, has had on the discipline. As a field, instructional design is historically and traditionally rooted in cognitive and behavioral psychology, though recently constructivism has influenced thinking in the field. This can be attributed to the way it emerged during a period when the behaviorist paradigm was dominating American psychology. There are also those who cite that, aside from behaviorist psychology, the origin of the concept could be traced back to systems engineering. While the impact of each of these fields is difficult to quantify, it is argued that the language and the "look and feel" of the early forms of instructional design and their progeny were derived from this engineering discipline. Specifically, they were linked to the training development model used by the U.S. military, which were based on systems approach and was explained as "the idea of viewing a problem or situation in its entirety with all its ramifications, with all its interior interactions, with all its exterior connections and with full cognizance of its place in its context.