Studies of Instructional Design Practices: Recent Research and Takeaways William Sugar, PhD Scholar-Teacher presentation March 26, 2015

Studies of Instructional Design Practices What? Research on instructional designers’ current practices Why? Insight on the differences (or gaps) between current instructional design practices and instructional design models Potential changes to instructional design practices, models, curriculum, and overall understanding of discipline Game plan for today….

“Takeaways”??? Or…now what???

Sugar, Brown, & Luterbach (2010) Question: What are the best ways to deliver a screencast in an online course? Three different approaches Evaluate common characteristics of screencasts (n=37)

Sugar, Brown, & Luterbach (2010) Takeaways Common features (e.g., bumpers, screen movement, and narration) Common instructional strategies (e.g., provide overview, describe procedure, present concept, focus attention, and elaborate content) Metacognitive awareness of best practices and my own screencasting practices Google Scholar: Currently, 29 citations

Sugar, Brown, Daniels, & Hoard (2011) Question: What type of multimedia production skills do entry-level IDT professionals need to have? Delphi study (n=11); IDT professionals in higher education setting Heterogeneous sampling

Sugar, Hoard, Brown, & Daniels (2012) Question: What type of multimedia production skills do entry-level IDT professionals need to have? Analysis of IDT jobs posted over a seven month period (n=615)

Sugar, et al. (2011); Sugar, et al. (2012) Takeaways Emphasis on general and basic multimedia production competences Interrelationship between instructional design and multimedia production competencies Emphasis on “soft skills” (e.g., collaboration, communications) Impact on our multimedia production course; no longer a “software application” course, but an overview of multimedia production skills course

Sugar (2014a) Question: What is the relationship between instructional design and multimedia production activities? Development of case studies to illustrate relationship Based on professional instructional designers’ experiences (n=47)

Sugar (2014a) Takeaways Three case studies: higher education (Sugar, 2013), corporate training, and military training IDT graduate students in multimedia production courses from six IDT graduate programs (n=57) evaluated case studies Overall, effective. Enhanced their understanding of related multimedia production and instructional design activities Future study: More research on use of case studies in three IDT programs (ECU, UNC Charlotte, and Emporia State)

Sugar (2014b) Question: What are the results and implications from existing research studies of ID practices? Summary and analysis of 102 studies of ID practices Three categories: ID professionals, ID students, and Expert/novice differences

Sugar (2014b) Takeaways Studies of ID practices on the rise. 80 studies of ID practices have been published since 2000 (78%); 37 of these studies were completed between 2010 and 2014 (36%) Common ID practices circa 1990’s Common ID and multimedia production competencies Innovative strategies to teach IDT students ID expertise

More Studies of ID practices research Sugar & Luterbach (2014) Analysis of professional designers effective, ineffective, and extraordinary critical incidents Sugar & Moore (2014) Evaluation of a professional instructional designer’s activities, roles and collaboration with clients over an one-year period Rich, Sugar, Luterbach, Mayer, & McPhillen (2013) Evaluation of multimedia production course offerings at IDT programs (n=101)

My personal takeaway….

Questions?

References Rich, P., Sugar, W., Luterbach, K., Mayer, A., & McPhillen, A. (2013, November). Examining multimedia production course offerings in Educational Technology programs. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology, Anaheim, CA. Sugar, W. (2014a). Development and formative evaluation of multimedia case studies for Instructional Design and Technology students. TechTrends, 58(5), Sugar, W. (2014b). Studies of ID practices: A review and synthesis of research on ID current practices. New York: Springer. Sugar, W., Brown, A., Daniels, L., & Hoard, B. (2011). Instructional Design and Technology professionals in higher education: Multimedia production knowledge and skills identified from a Delphi study. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 1(2), Sugar, W., Brown, A., & Luterbach, K. (2010). Examining the anatomy of a screencast: Uncovering common elements and instructional strategies. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 11(3), Sugar, W., Hoard, B., Brown, A., & Daniels, L. (2012). Identifying multimedia production competencies and skills of instructional design and technology professionals: An analysis of recent job postings. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 40(3), Sugar, W. A. & Luterbach, K. J. (2014). Using critical incidents of instructional design and multimedia production activities to investigate instructional designers’ current practices and roles. Manuscript submitted for publication. Sugar, W. & Moore, R. L. (2014). Documenting current instructional design practices: Towards a typology of instructional designer activities, roles, and collaboration. Manuscript submitted for publication.