Instructional Design: Needs Assessment

• Developing and implementing instruction is complex and multifaceted
• The process of developing instruction is instructional design
• Instructional design process is often presented as sequential stages
• Instruction librarians should use their knowledge of the theory of instructional design to guide them

Needs Assessment

• Conducting a needs assessment ensures a responsive and appropriate educational program
• Need is a discrepancy "between an actual condition or state and a desired standard"
• A needs assessment identifies existing discrepancies, prioritizing them
• Needs assessment should continually respond to changes in user groups, information structures, and resources
• Both external and internal factors need assessing
• Strategies for needs assessment include literature reviews, surveys, observations, and testing
• Literature reviews include local and institutional sources, such as archives and college catalogs
• National and international sources, such as clearinghouses and publications in library science and related fields are also useful
• Surveys can assess user needs and preferences, and staff attitudes toward instruction
• Observation at the reference desk, in the stacks, or near computer terminals can provide evidence of user needs
• Reviews of Web site traffic patterns, search strings in the library catalog, and user comments are helpful
• Libraries are beginning to systematically use work-practice studies to understand user needs
• Users can be tested on their knowledge and skills
• User surveys and observation are the most common approaches for conducting needs assessment for library instruction

Goals and Objectives

• Instruction librarians determine which needs are highest priority after gathering information
• They consider political acceptability
• A broad aim for the instruction should be formulated
• After needs assessment, the instruction librarian identifies goals and objectives of the instruction
• Goals and objectives do not guarantee success, but lacking them could mean failure
• Written objectives are expressions of the intended outcomes or results of learning
• Instructional objectives serve both the instructor and the learner
• Objectives provide consistency in structuring content, facilitate choices of media and methods, and help determine supplemental learning aids
• For the learner, give direction, set clear expectations, increase motivation, focus time, and allow for self-monitoring
• create mutual understanding of content, expectations, and outcomes

Three Levels of Objectives

• General objectives describe overall program goals in broad terms
• Terminal objectives break general objectives into specific, meaningful units
• Enabling objectives define knowledge or skills necessary to achieve the terminal objective, with three characteristics: performance, conditions, and criterion
• It's preferable to write objectives that are "specific enough to provide focus for both teaching and the assessment of learning, without limiting teacher's flexibility in selecting instructional methods and materials"
• Critics argue that student performance may not reflect what the student has learned
• Use an overall classification of possible learning outcomes to "serve as a frame of reference"
• Bloom's Taxonomy gives a hierarchical organization of learning in the cognitive domain (thinking skills)
• Krathwohl and colleagues have done the same for the affective domain
• Simpson has detailed the psychomotor domain
• Hauenstein takes a holistic approach to the three domains in rewriting the taxonomies as a unified whole
• Model Statement of Objectives for Academic Bibliographic Instruction, is developed is a useful assistance for instruction librarians

Instructional Content

• Details the intended outcomes for instruction

Learning Theory and Styles

• Most effective instruction considers learning theory and individual learning styles

Views of Learning and Knowledge

• Robert M. Gagné defines learning as “a change in human disposition or capability that persists over a period of time and is not simply ascribable to processes of growth.”
• Behaviorism knowledge views as passive responses to external factors
• Cognitivists knowledge views as symbolic, mental representations in the minds of individuals
• Constructivists view knowledge as a constructed entity

Styles of Learning

• David Kolb found that individuals have tendencies to both perceive and process information differently
• Learners can be concrete or abstract perceivers and active or reflective processors

Instructional Methods

• It begins after the needs assessment is complete, learning goals are clear, learning theory and styles are examined
• No one method serves all situations, and the effectiveness of a method is based on certain objectives
• Commonly, more than one method is used during a single session
• Instruction, subject matter, learner populations, instructors, instructional space, facilities, equipment and materials, time, and costs should be analyzed

Lecture/Discussion

• A lecture is a semiformal discourse in which the instructor presents a series of events, facts, or principles
• Discussion includes questions, answers, and comments from instructors and students

Demonstation

• Instructor performs a skill or process

Active Learning

• Occurs when students do more than listen and observe
• Students must engage in such higher-order thinking tasks as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
• Provide time for learners to process info

Collaborative Learning

• An umbrella term for a broad array of teaching methods
• Learning depends on rich contexts

Instructional Materials

• Includes all resources to assist with teaching and learning

Handouts

• Used as supplements to point-of-use instruction

Exercises and Assignments

• Unlike handouts, exercises and assignments are unique to formal instruction

Instructional Technology

• Instructors learn new skills, develop support systems

Evaluation and Assessments

• Is a process used to to increase the credibility and usefulness of information
• The improvement of instruction for the benefit of learners

Administration and Management of Instruction

• Involves many issues, including organizational structures, personnel, and funding

Program Structures

• Unique to that library's situation and mission

Funding

• All aspects of designing and implementing will require funding

Facilities

• Instruction programs have space for instruction, preparation, storage, and staff offices
• Publicity and public relations
• Involves educating potential users

Instructional design is a complex process, often presented in stages. Conducting a needs assessment ensures a responsive educational program. It identifies discrepancies prioritizing them and responding to changes in user groups, information structures, and resources.