Instructional Design And Development Of

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ADULT LEARNING PROGRAMS:

THE PROCESS APPROACH.

by

Paul Robere

A capstone document submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD

Doctorate in Instructional Design

Rushmore University

2007

Approved by

Professor Alan Guinn

Program Authorized

to Offer Degree

Date Rushmore University

ABSTRACT:

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ADULT LEARNING PROGRAMS:

A process approach

by

Paul Robere

For years I created training courses. There were some that worked well, and some that needed extensive rewrite. What made the difference? Trial and error usually came up with a workable solution, but the "trial and error" approach was costly in terms of time and resources. Sometimes the request for a training program that was unique or different came without a lot of notice. This created a need for a quick program design. Usually this "quick" approach ended up with an end result that was less than positive.

What was the solution? A wise man once said, "There are "six-Ð''p's" of success: "Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance". While it may have been a rather crude way of stating it, the fact is that Planning is the key to the solution.

This "capstone" document, therefore, covers the major topics necessary to properly plan and implement the design, development and improvement of training programs to a very specific audience: adult learners. Recognizing that all learners receive, interpret and apply given information in various ways, specific attention will be given to the application of accelerated learning techniques to provide a challenging and value-added classroom experience for adult learners.

The research that was done in this subject formed the foundation for the development of four specific training courses that have subsequently been internationally certified and are currently being taught. These courses have been submitted to Rushmore University to support this research and application.

While the approach taken to create the subject training documents submitted in support of this study, there were specific reference documents that had to be used to fulfill international requirements:

Ð'* ISO Standards

Ð'* IRCA Requirements

In order for the training courses that were developed to meet these international standards, strict adherence to the requirements and specifications had to be met. The methodology, and created documents were reviewed and audited by IRCA before being approved for use.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents iv

Introduction: 6

Chapter 1 Ð'- The Basic Principles of good instructional design 9

Chapter 2 Ð'- Why a process approach to curriculum design? 12

Chapter 3 Ð'- Planning: (Analysis Phase) 15

Chapter 4 Ð'- Getting Started: analyzing requirements 18

Chapter 5 Ð'- Setting Training Objectives 24

Chapter 6 Ð'- Organizing content for effective learning 26

Chapter 7 Ð'- Producing Learning materials 32

Chapter 8 Ð'- How well have we done? 36

Chapter 8 Ð'- How well have we done? 37

Chapter 9 Ð'- Course design validation: meeting the need 40

Conclusion: 43

Bibliography 45

Index 47

Appendix A: 49

Selected Clauses: Standard ISO9001:2000 49

Appendix B 52

Training Course Verification Record 52

Appendix C 53

Appendix D 54

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express sincere appreciation to Dr. Michael Cox's family for their several years of friendship and encouragement and Professor Alan Guinn for his follow-through in staying in touch to give me the motivation to finalize my program.

Additionally, I would like to thank Rushmore University. I have, for the past twenty-five years, been designing and providing training programs as well as consulting in management systems. It was not until I started putting my thoughts down on paper to fulfill some of the requirements of my Rushmore program that I became more aware of the "structure" that I had been following all these years without being fully aware of the formalized process.

This paper, therefore, covers the process of design, development, presentation and improvement of adult training programs.

Introduction:

I'm an educator, or at least I would like to think that I am. I've spent many years trying to "educate" others, starting with my own children, which provided several levels of success, and continuing into my professional military career and finally into business.

The structure of this "education" process had always been of interest to me. I could remember specific instances where I would either look forward to going to a class or dreading the experience. I remember a couple of college professors in college that had a common ability: the ability to make the learning "real"; to make you think,