Instructional Design Models

Instructional design models describe a set of processes carried out during instructional analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Most models [Page 387]define temporal or informational interdependencies between these processes. Design process models are used in many design fields, including architecture, business, engineering, and computer and software design and possess many similarities from field to field. Instructional design models pertain only to the domain of instructional design.

Models create a common language that brings together the interests of many stakeholders, describing the design process from different perspectives: the designer’s, the client’s, the theorist’s, the project director’s, the team’s, or the student’s. Models may address the concerns of administrators, marketers, financial personnel, high-level decision makers, designers, or all of these. Though many instructional design models rely heavily on diagrammatic representations, a model can specify sequences of activity, deliverable document format and content, decision-making processes, decision-making criteria, organizational processes, or the pattern of influence from early decisions on later decisions. This entry first discusses versions of instructional design models and their history. This entry then discusses how reviewers have analyzed the models and current trends in instructional design models.

Instructional design models, which are numerous, focus on different aspects of design activity. They differ in their level of detail and sometimes focus on only a particular phase of instructional design. Instructional design models are usually referred to using umbrella terms such as ADDIE (which stands for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) or ISD (standing for instructional systems design or development). The ISD acronym originates from a standard instructional design model created for the U.S. military titled interservice procedures for instructional systems development (IPISD). Before IPISD, the acronyms SAT (systems approach to training), SET (systems engineering of training), and others were commonly used to refer to the growing body of systematic and systems-oriented design processes used to design instructional systems.