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Instructional Design

Assume that you are told to teach learners [a topic] on the foundation of e-learning. Choose three of the theories of learning discussed in the textbook (Chapter 4). For each of the three, describe the nature of the instructional activities that you would design if you were adhering to that theory as you were planning the instruction. You may incorporate a problem-based approach, as discussed in Chapter 7 of the textbook, when it is relevant. Be creative and select a topic you think should be taught in the Foundation of e-Learning course. Here are examples of [topics] which might be appropriate:

e.g.

definition of e-learning or online learning
history of e-learning or online learning
trend of e-learning or online learning in various sectors
psychological foundations of e-Learning design
The length of the paper should be 7 pages (1 cover page, 5 main pages, 1 reference page). The reference section must conform to APA styles.

[Delete the instruction above when you submit your assignment due to the match rate in the SafeAssign originality test.]

TRENDS AND ISSUES IN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Third Edition

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Edited by

Robert A. Reiser Florida State University

John V. Dempsey University of South Alabama

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ISBN-10: 0-13-256358-4 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-256358-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reiser, Robert A. Trends and issues in instructional design and technology/edited by Robert A. Reiser, John V. Dempsey.—3rd ed.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-13-256358-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-13-256358-4 (alk. paper) 1. Instructional systems—Design. 2. Educational technology. I. Reiser, Robert A. II. Dempsey, John V. III. Title. LB1028.38.T74 2012 371.33—dc22

2010052044

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Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on appropriate page within text.

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Preface vi Introduction ix Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey

SECTION I DEFINING THE FIELD 1

Chapter 1 What Field Did You Say You Were In? Defining and Naming Our Field 1

Robert A. Reiser

Chapter 2 Characteristics of Instructional Design Models 8 Robert M. Branch and M. David Merrill

Chapter 3 A History of Instructional Design and Technology 17 Robert A. Reiser

SECTION II THEORIES AND MODELS OF LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION 35

Chapter 4 Psychological Foundations of Instructional Design 35 Marcy P. Driscoll

Chapter 5 Constructivism in Practical and Historical Context 45 Brent G. Wilson

Chapter 6 The Learning Sciences: Where They Came From and What It Means for Instructional Designers 53

Christopher Hoadley and James P. Van Haneghan

Chapter 7 Designing for Problem Solving 64 David Jonassen

Chapter 8 Instructional Theory and Technology for a Postindustrial World 75 Charles M. Reigeluth

Chapter 9 Motivation, Volition, and Performance 84 John M. Keller and Markus Deimann

Contents

iii

iv CONTENTS

SECTION III EVALUATING AND MANAGING INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS 96

Chapter 10 Evaluation in Instructional Design: A Comparison of Evaluation Models 96

R. Burke Johnson and Walter Dick

Chapter 11 An Introduction to Return on Investment 105 Jack J. Phillips and Patricia P. Phillips

Chapter 12 Managing On-Site and Virtual Design Teams 116 Brenda C. Litchfield

Chapter 13 Managing Scarce Resources in Training Organizations 126 James J. Goldsmith and Richard D. Busby

SECTION IV PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT 135

Chapter 14 The Development and Evolution of Human Performance Improvement 135

Harold D. Stolovitch and Bonnie Beresford

Chapter 15 Performance Support 147 Frank Nyugen

Chapter 16 Knowledge Management and Learning: Perfect Together 158 Marc J. Rosenberg

Chapter 17 Informal Learning 169 Allison Rossett and Bob Hoffman

SECTION V TRENDS AND ISSUES IN VARIOUS SETTINGS 178 Chapter 18 Instructional Design in Business and Industry 178

Monica W. Tracey and Gary R. Morrison

Chapter 19 Instructional Design Opportunities in Military Education and Training Environments 187

Mary F. Bratton-Jeffery and Arthur B. Jeffery

Chapter 20 Performance, Instruction, and Technology in Health Care Education 197 Craig Locatis

Chapter 21 Instructional Designers and P-12 Technology Integration 208 Deborah L. Lowther and Steven M. Ross

Chapter 22 Five University Roles for Designers From Three Nations 218 Brenda C. Litchfield, J. V. Dempsey, Peter Albion, Jacquie McDonald, and Junko Nemoto

SECTION VI GLOBAL TRENDS AND ISSUES IN IDT 229

Chapter 23 Developing Learning to Meet Complex Challenges for an Undivided World 229

Jan Visser

Chapter 24 Instructional Design and Technology in an Asian Context: Focusing on Japan and Korea 239

Katsuaki Suzuki and Insung Jung

CONTENTS v

Chapter 25 Instructional Design in Europe 248 Phil Green

SECTION VII GETTING AN IDT POSITION AND SUCCEEDING AT IT 256

Chapter 26 Getting an Instructional Design Position: Lessons from a Personal History 256

Robert A. Reiser

Chapter 27 Getting a Job in Business and Industry 263 Gabrielle K. Gabrielli and Robert K. Branson

Chapter 28 Professional Organizations and Publications in Instructional Design and Technology 273

James D. Klein, Nick Rushby, and Yuyan Su

SECTION VIII NEW DIRECTIONS IN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY 281

Chapter 29 E-Learning and Instructional Design 281 J. V. Dempsey and Richard N. Van Eck

Chapter 30 Learning Objects 290 Susan Smith Nash

Chapter 31 Networks, Web 2.0, and the Connected Learner 299 Terry Anderson

Chapter 32 Using Rich Media Wisely 309 Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer

Chapter 33 Games . . . and . . . Learning 321 Valerie J. Shute, Lloyd P. Rieber, and Richard Van Eck

Chapter 34 Designing in Virtual Worlds 333 J. V. Dempsey, Rebecca Reese, and Stasia Weston

SECTION IX CURRENT ISSUES IN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY 342

Chapter 35 Professional Ethics: Rules Applied to Practice 342 Sharon E. Smaldino, J. Ana Donaldson, and Mary Herring

Chapter 36 Diversity and Accessibility 348 Joél P. Lewis and Stephen M. Sullivan

Chapter 37 The Changing Nature of Design 358 Elizabeth Boling and Kennon M. Smith

Chapter 38 Debate About the Benefits of Different Levels of Instructional Guidance 367

Richard E. Clark and Michael J. Hannafin

Epilogue 383 Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey

Index 385

CHAPTER NUMBER Chapter Title vi

This book provides readers with a clear picture of the field of instructional design and technol- ogy. Many textbooks in the IDT field focus on the skills needed by instructional designers and technologists. However, we believe that professionals in the field should be able to do more than just perform the skills associated with it. They should also be able to clearly describe the nature of the field, know and understand the field’s history and its current status, and describe the trends and issues that have affected it and will be likely to do so in the future. This book will help readers attain these goals.

Organization of the Book Organized into nine sections, the first section of the book focuses on foundational issues—defining key terms in the field and presenting its history. The second section, addressing the theories and models of learning and instruction that serve as the basis for the field, discusses wide arrays of viewpoints ranging from cognitive and behavioral perspectives to some of the views of teaching and learning associated with constructivism and the learning sciences. Two of the often over- looked phases of the instructional design process, namely, evaluating and managing instructional programs and projects, receive attention in section three, with particular emphasis on current methods of evaluation, including return on investment, and on how to manage design teams and scarce resources. The fourth section of the book hones in on key ideas and practices associated with performance improvement. A variety of non-instructional solutions to performance problems, such as performance support, knowledge management, and informal learning, are described. The fifth section of the book describes what IDT professionals do in a variety of work settings, including business and industry, the military, health care, P–12 schools, and higher education. Global trends in instructional design and technology, section six of the book, offers insights about the instructional design practices and technologies employed in parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Section seven focuses on how to get an IDT position and succeed at it. In addition to offering suggestions to job seekers, the section describes some of the organizations and publica- tions that will foster the growth of IDT professionals. The eighth section explores new directions in the field, including the impact of recent trends such as social networking, virtual worlds, and game-based learning. The last section of the book addresses some of the current issues in the field of instructional design and technology. Topics such as diversity, accessibility, professional ethics, and the benefits of different levels of instructional guidance are among the current-day issues addressed.

Preface

vi

PREFACE vii

What’s New in This Edition? The third edition of this book differs significantly from the second edition. One major difference is the inclusion of 18 new chapters in this edition. Many of these chapters provide an in-depth look at topics that were either not covered, or briefly touched upon, in the second edition. These thoroughly new chapters focus on:

• Constructivism (Chapter 5) • The Learning Sciences (Chapter 6) • Designing for Problem Solving (Chapter 7) • Instructional Theory for a Postindustrial World (Chapter 8) • Return on Investment (Chapter 11) • Performance Support (Chapter 15) • Instructional Design in P–12 Education (Chapter 21) • Instructional Design in the Developing World (Chapter 23) • Instructional Design in Asia (Chapter 24) • Instructional Design in Europe (Chapter 25) • Reusability and Reusable Design (Chapter 30) • Web 2.0 and Social Networking (Chapter 31) • Game-Based Learning (Chapter 33) • Virtual Worlds (Chapter 34) • Professional Ethics (Chapter 35) • Diversity and Accessibility (Chapter 36) • The Changing Nature of Design (Chapter 37) • The Benefits of Different Levels of Instructional Guidance: A Debate (Chapter 38)

In addition to these new chapters, many of the other chapters have been extensively revised. These chapters include:

• Characteristics of Instructional Design Models (Chapter 2). This chapter now includes an entirely new major section devoted to whole task approaches to the instructional design process.

• A History of Instructional Design and Technology (Chapter 3). New sections discuss recent increases in the use of digital media and informal learning in a wide variety of instructional settings, and the impact of these events on instructional design practices.

• Motivation, Volition, and Performance (Chapter 9). An extensive discussion of volition has been added to this chapter.

• Evaluation in Instructional Design (Chapter 10). Descriptions of several evaluation models that were not previously discussed (i.e., Brinkerhoff, Patton, and Rossi) have been added to this chapter.

• Informal Learning (Chapter 17). This chapter now contains an extensive discussion of how reliance on informal learning has increased as a result of the expanding use of Web 2.0 and social networking tools.

• Five University Roles for Designers from Three Nations (Chapter 22) now includes an au- thor from Japan, who describes the Japanese experience, as well as authors from Australia and the United States.

• Professional Organizations and Publications in Instructional Design and Technology (Chapter 28) has been revised and updated and includes twenty professional organizations and fifty publications of interest to members of the IDT community.

• E-Learning and Instructional Design (Chapter 29) explores the primary drivers of e-learning such as convergence, virtual social learning communities, and personal technologies.

viii PREFACE

Also new to this edition of the book are end-of-chapter summaries of the key principles dis- cussed in each chapter. These summaries are designed to help students recall the key ideas expressed throughout each chapter.

The case-based application questions that appear at the end of each chapter of the book should also be mentioned. While a few questions of this type appeared in the previous editions, in this edition the majority of application questions present students with authentic (“real-world”) prob- lems and require them to solve those problems. We have used these sorts of application questions in our classes for quite a few years, and our students have indicated that trying to solve them has really helped them to learn how to apply the key principles and practices associated with the various trends they are studying.

New! CourseSmart eTextbook Available CourseSmart is an exciting new choice for students looking to save money. As an alternative to purchasing the printed textbook, students can purchase an electronic version of the same content. With a CourseSmart eTextbook, students can search the text, make notes online, print out reading assignments that incorporate lecture notes, and bookmark important passages for later review. For more information, or to purchase access to the CourseSmart eTextbook, visit www.coursesmart.com.

Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible if it were not for all the hard work done by the many in- dividuals who have written chapters for it. As a group, they voluntarily spent many hundreds of hours putting together a series of chapters that provides readers with what we consider an in- sightful overview of the field of instructional design and technology, and the trends and issues that are affecting it. We would like to express our deepest thanks and sincere appreciation to all of these authors for their outstanding efforts. We really believe they did an excellent job, and we are confident that after you read the chapters they wrote, you will feel the same way.

We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to Kelly Villella Canton, our editor at Pearson Teacher Education, to Annalea Manalili, Kelly’s editorial assistant, to Greg Erb, our production editor at Pearson, and to Nandini Loganathan and the production staff at S4Carlisle Publishing Services. Their help in putting together this manuscript has proved to be invaluable.

We also appreciate the input from users in the field. Sincere thanks to all of our reviewers: J. Ana Donaldson, Walden University; Patricia L. Hardré, The University of Oklahoma; Odin Jurkowski, University of Central Missouri; Susan A. Santo, University of South Dakota; and Pat Zawko, State University of New York Institute of Technology.

www.coursesmart.com
Introduction

Robert A. Reiser Florida State University

and

John V. Dempsey University of South Alabama

Many of us who have been in this field for a while have had the experience of facing our parents and trying to explain our profession to them. Long explanations, short explanations—the end result is always the same. Our parents go cross-eyed and mumble something like, “That's nice, dear.”

How about your parents? How much do they know about the field you are now studying, the field this book is about? They probably can’t describe it very well; perhaps they can’t even name it. But that puts them in some pretty good company. Many professionals in this field have trouble describing it. Indeed, many of them aren’t sure exactly what to call it—instructional technology, educational technology, instructional design, instructional development, instructional systems, or instructional design and technology (IDT), the name we, the editors of this book, have decided to use. Just what is the nature of the field that practitioners call by so many names? This is the basic question that the authors of the chapters in this book have attempted to answer.

This volume grew from each of our experiences in teaching a “Trends and Issues” course at our respective universities (together, we have a total of almost sixty years of experience teach- ing a course of this nature!). For many years we used an ever-changing collection of readings from a variety of sources. For all the differences between our two courses, there were greater similarities. (Dempsey was, after all, a student in Reiser's Trends & Issues course shortly after movable type was invented.) So, it was natural that we spoke together on several occasions about the kind of text we would like to have, if we had our druthers.

When the folks at Pearson Education encouraged us in our delusions, our first idea was to produce a book of reprints from germane periodicals. As our discussions continued, however, we decided to invite a number of the most talented individuals we know in the field to contribute original manu- scripts. The result is this book, Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology.

The many talented authors and leaders in the field who have contributed to this book join with us in the hope that by the time you finish reading it, you will have a clearer picture of the nature of the field of instructional design and technology, and the trends and issues that have affected it in the past, today, and in the future. If we succeed in our efforts, then you may be able to clearly describe our field to your parents, or anyone who will take the time to listen.

ix

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Chapter 1 What Field Did You Say You Were In?

Defining and Naming Our Field1

What are the boundaries of the field we are in? Howshall we define it? Indeed, what shall we call it? These are important questions that professionals in our field should be able to answer or, because there is no gen- erally accepted “correct” answer, at least be able to discuss intelligently. This chapter is intended to provide you with information that should help you formulate some tentative answers to these questions. The chapter will examine how the definition of the field has changed over the years, pres- ent two new definitions, and discuss the term that we will use in this book as the label for our field.

Before beginning to examine the definitions of our field, it is important to point out that not only have the definitions changed, but the actual name of the field itself has often varied. Over the years, a variety of different labels have been used, including, among others, such terms as audiovi- sual instruction, audiovisual communications, and educa- tional technology. However, the term that has been used most frequently has been instructional technology. This is the term that will be used in the next few sections of this chapter. However, the issue of the proper name for the field will be revisited near the end of the chapter.

SECTION I Defining the Field

Robert A. Reiser Florida State University

What is the field of instructional technology? This is a difficult question to answer because the field is constantly changing. New ideas and innovations affect the practices of individuals in the field, changing, often broadening, the scope of their work. Moreover, as is the case with many professions, different individuals in the field focus their at- tention on different aspects of it, oftentimes thinking that the work they do is at the heart of the field, that their work is what instructional technology is “really all about.”

Over the years, many attempts have been made to define the field. Several such efforts have resulted in definitions that were accepted by a large number of professionals in the field, or at least by the professional organizations to which they be- longed. However, even when a leading organization in the field has endorsed a particular definition, professionals in the field have operated from a wide variety of different personal as well as institutional perspectives. This has held true among intellectual leaders as well as practitioners. Thus, throughout the history of the field, the thinking and actions of a substantial number of professionals in the field have not been, and likely never will be, captured by a single definition.

Early Definitions: Instructional Technology Viewed As Media Early definitions of the field of instructional technology focused on instructional media—the physical means via which instruction is presented to learners. The roots of the

1I would like thank Walter Dick, Don Ely, and Kent Gustafson for pro- viding me with invaluable feedback on earlier versions of this manu- script, portions of which previously appeared in Educational Technology Research and Development (Reiser & Ely, 1997).

1

2 SECTION I Defining the Field

field have been traced back at least as far as the first decade of the twentieth century, when one of these media— educational film—was first being produced (Saettler, 1990). Beginning with this period, and extending through the 1920s, there was a marked increase in the use of visual materials (such as films, pictures, and lantern slides) in the public schools. These activities were all part of what has become known as the visual instruction movement. For- mal definitions of visual instruction focused on the media that were used to present that instruction. For example, one of the first textbooks on visual instruction defined it as “the enrichment of education through the ‘seeing experience’ [involving] the use of all types of visual aids such as the excursion, flat pictures, models, exhibits, charts, maps, graphs, stereographs, stereopticon slides, and motion pictures” (Dorris, 1928, p. 6).

During the late 1920s through the 1940s, as a result of advances in such media as sound recordings, radio broad- casting, and motion pictures with sound, the focus of the field shifted from visual instruction to audiovisual instruc- tion. This interest in media continued through the 1950s, with the growth of television. Thus, during the first half of the twentieth century, most of those individuals involved in the field that we now call instructional technology were fo- cusing most of their attention on instructional media.

Today many individuals who view themselves as members of the instructional technology profession still focus much, if not all, of their attention on the design, production, and use of instructional media. Moreover, many individuals both within and outside of the field of instructional technology equate the field with instruc- tional media. Yet, although the view of instructional tech- nology as media has persisted over the years, during the past fifty years other views of instructional technology have emerged and have been subscribed to by many pro- fessionals in the field.

1960s and 1970s: Instructional Technology Viewed as a Process

Beginning in the 1950s, and particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, a number of leaders in the field of education started discussing instructional technology in a different way—rather than equating it with media, they discussed it as being a process. For example, Finn (1960) indicated that instructional technology should be viewed as a way of looking at instructional problems and examining fea- sible solutions to those problems. And Lumsdaine (1964) indicated that educational technology could be thought of as the application of science to instructional practices. As you will see, most of the definitions of the 1960s and 1970s reflect this view of instructional technology as a process.

The 1963 Definition

In 1963, the first definition to be approved by the major professional organization within the field of educational technology was published, and it too indicated that the field was not simply about media. This definition (Ely, 1963), produced by a commission established by the De- partment of Audiovisual Instruction (now known as the Association for Educational Communications and Tech- nology), was a departure from the “traditional” view of the field in several important respects. First, rather than focus- ing on media, the definition focused on “the design and use of messages which control the learning process” (p. 38). Moreover, the definition statement identified a series of steps that individuals should undertake in designing and using such messages. These steps, which included plan- ning, production, selection, utilization, and management, are similar to several of the major steps often associated with what has become known as systematic instructional design (more often simply referred to as instructional de- sign). In addition, the definition statement placed an em- phasis on learning rather than instruction. The differences identified here reflect how, at that time, some of the lead- ers in the field saw the nature of the field changing.

The 1970 Definitions

The changing nature of the field of instructional technol- ogy is even more apparent when you examine the next ma- jor definition statement, produced in 1970 by the Commission on Instructional Technology. The Commis- sion was established and funded by the U.S. government to examine the potential benefits and problems associated with increased use of instructional technology in schools. The Commission’s report, entitled To Improve Learning (Commission on Instructional Technology, 1970), pro- vided two definitions of instructional technology. The first definition reflected the older view of instructional technol- ogy, stating:

In its more familiar sense, it [instructional technology] means the media born of the communications revolution which can be used for instructional purposes alongside the teacher, textbook, and blackboard. . . . The pieces that make up instructional technology [include]: television, films, overhead projectors, computers, and other items of “hard- ware” and “software”. . . (p. 21)

In contrast to this definition, the Commission offered a second definition that described instructional technology as a process, stating:

The second and less familiar definition of instructional tech- nology goes beyond any particular medium or device. In this sense, instructional technology is more than the sum of its parts. It is a systematic way of designing, carrying out, and

CHAPTER 1 What Field Did You Say You Were In? 3

evaluating the whole process of learning and teaching in terms of specific objectives, based on research on human learning and communication, and employing a combination of human and nonhuman resources to bring about more ef- fective instruction. (p. 21)

Whereas the Commission’s first definition seems to re- inforce old notions about the field of instructional technol- ogy, its second definition definitely defines the field differently, introducing a variety of concepts that had not appeared in previous “official” definitions of the field. It is particularly important to note that this definition mentions a “systematic” process that includes the specification of objectives and the design, implementation, and evaluation of instruction, each term representing one of the steps in the systematic instructional design procedures that were beginning to be discussed in the professional literature of the field (e.g., Finn, 1960, Gagné, 1965; Hoban, 1977; Lumsdaine, 1964; Scriven, 1967). The definition also in- dicates that the field is based on research and that the goal of the field is to bring about more effective learning (echo- ing the 1963 emphasis on this concept). Finally, the defi- nition discusses the use of both nonhuman and human resources for instructional purposes, seemingly downplay- ing the role of media.

The 1977 Definition

In 1977, the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) adopted a new definition of the field. This definition differed from the previous definitions in several ways. Perhaps most noteworthy was its length— it consisted of sixteen statements spread over seven pages of text, followed by nine pages of tables elaborating on some of the concepts mentioned in the statements, as well as nine more chapters (more than 120 pages) that provided further elaboration. Although the authors clearly indicated that no one portion of the definition was adequate by itself, and that the sixteen parts were to be taken as a whole, the first sentence of the definition statement provides a sense of its breadth:

Educational technology is a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organiza- tion, for analyzing problems and devising, implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems, involved in all aspects of human learning. (p. 1)

Much like the second 1970 definition put forth by the Commission, the 1977 definition placed a good deal of emphasis on a systematic (“complex, integrated”) design process; the various parts of the definition mentioned many of the steps in most current systematic design processes (e.g., design, production, implementation, and evaluation). It is particularly interesting to note that the

1977 definition statement was the first such statement to mention the analysis phase of the planning process, which at that time was beginning to receive increasing attention among professionals in the field.

The 1977 definition also broke new ground by incorpo- rating other terminology that, within a period of a few years, was to become commonplace in the profession. For example, the definition included the terms human learning problems and solutions, foreshadowing the frequent cur- rent use of these terms, especially in the context of perfor- mance improvement.

The 1977 definition also included detailed tables de- scribing the various learning resources associated with the field. This list gave equal emphasis to people, materials, and devices, reinforcing the notion that the work of in- structional technologists was not limited to the develop- ment and use of media.

The 1994 Definition: Beyond Viewing Instructional Technology as a Process

During the period from 1977 to the mid-1990s, many de- velopments affected the field of instructional technology.2

Whereas behavioral learning theory had previously served as the basis for many of the instructional design practices employed by those in the field, cognitive and constructivist learning theories began to have a major influence on design practices. The profession was also greatly influenced by technological advances such as the microcomputer, inter- active video, CD-ROM, and the Internet. The vast expan- sion of communications technologies led to burgeoning interest in distance learning, and “new” instructional strate- gies such as collaborative learning gained in popularity. As a result of these and many other influences, by the mid-1990s the field of instructional technology was very different from what it was in 1977, when the previous def- inition of the field had been published. Thus, it was time to redefine the field.

Work on a new definition of the field officially com- menced in 1990 and continued until 1994, when AECT published Instructional Technology: The Definitions and Domains of the Field (Seels & Richey, 1994). This book contains a detailed description of the field, as well as the following concise definition statement:

Instructional Technology is the theory and practice of de- sign, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning. (p. 1)

As is evident in the definition, the field is described in terms of five domains—design, development, utilization,

2Many of these developments will be discussed in detail in succeeding chapters in this book.

4 SECTION I Defining the Field

management, and evaluation—five areas of study and practice within the field. The interrelationship between these domains is visually represented by a wheel-like vi- sual, with each domain on the perimeter and connected to a “theory and practice” hub. This representation scheme was designed, in part, to prevent readers from coming to the erroneous conclusion that these domains are linearly related (Richey & Seels, 1994).

Unlike the second 1970 definition and the 1977 AECT definition, the 1994 definition does not describe the field as process oriented. In fact, the authors of the 1994 definition state they purposely excluded the word “systematic” in their definition so as to reflect current interests in alternative design methodologies such as constructivist approaches (Richey & Seels, 1994). Nonetheless, the five domains that are identified in the definition are very similar to the steps that comprise the “systematic” processes described in the previous two definitions. Indeed, each of the five terms (design, development, utilization, management, and evalua- tion) or a synonym is used directly or indirectly in one or both of the previous two definitions.

The 1994 definition statement moves in some other new directions and revisits some old ones. For example, much like the 1963 definition statement, the 1994 statement de- scribes the field in terms of theory and practice, emphasizing the notion that the field of instructional technology is not only an area of practice, but also an area of research and study. The documents in which the 1970 and 1977 definition statements appear also discuss theory and practice, but the definition statements themselves do not mention these terms.

In at least two respects, the 1994 definition is similar to its two most recent predecessors. First, it does not separate teachers from media, incorporating both into the phrase “resources for learning.” And second, it focuses on the im- provement of learning as the goal of the field, with in- struction being viewed as a means to that end.

Although the 1994 definition discusses instruction as a means to an end, a good deal of attention is devoted to in- structional processes. The authors indicate that the “processes . . . for learning” (Seels & Richey, 1994, p. 1) mentioned in their definition refer to both design and de- livery processes. Their discussion of the latter revolves around a variety of instructional strategies, and reflects the profession’s current interest in a wide variety of instruc- tional techniques, ranging from traditional lecture/discus- sion approaches to open-ended learning environments.

Two Recent Definitions In the past few years, several definitions have been pub- lished. In this section of the chapter, we will focus on two of these—one that an AECT committee has recently

produced and one that we, the authors of this textbook, have developed.

The Latest AECT Definition

In 2008, an AECT committee produced a book that pre- sented a new definition of the field of educational technol- ogy (AECT Definition and Terminology Committee, 2008). The definition statement that appears in the book is as follows:

Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. (p. 1)

One of the many useful features of the book is a series of chapters devoted to explaining each of the key terms in the definition statement and discussing how the new defi- nition differs from previous ones. Some of the key terms that the authors discuss in the chapters are described below.