April Blog

Every month I have tried to add something of interest to my blog. It makes finding interesting articles to share exciting and as the months progress it will become harder and harder to find new ideas. Not just some idea re done.

However right now I'm spoiled for choice. Do I talk about the course I'm doing online through the open polytechnic here in New Zealand, which is about transforming learning from a typical training environment to an online environment. Something I'm excited about and looking forward to learning more about. Or do I talk about an interesting study I saw about Training designers. Well seeing as I'm only 1/2 way through my course I'll leave that to latter.

The survey however was on interest as it outlined how versatile the profession of Instructional designers are. About there constant battle to have quality within learning d. Especially amongst training cost cuts.

Why pick this to talk about well as I work through the last parts of putting a Quality Management System together for the company I work for, and as we get to the implementation phase I can see ahead the battles that will rage. "Why do this we have been doing it this way and it works etc etc".

The quality of training I believe has never been more required than it is now. In times when cost of training is being looked at very closely by all. Training has to meet al the needs of not only the stakeholders but the students as well.

As I move through getting our company accreditation to award national unit standards I can see the trainers within the company being placed in a position where they will loose some of there freedoms. The organisational needs of the stakeholders will be compared to the National standards and training will be designed with these two aspects in mind. The role of the SME will become less and less, except where review is required, The role of the designer will increase. I've talked about that conflict in past blogs.

The designers survey talked also about the diversification of that role. How the Instructional designers adapt there role to full fill many of the roles within the training programmes. Again this professional group is some what underestimated in the larger TD world. As TD professionals world over all say "we are the poor cousins of HR". Well the instructional designers must be the uncle who sets a good example for the rest of the family but is not always listened too. They do a good job and keep us honest all the time looking at all aspects of the training process. A profession I am proud to be part of.

Here are some extracts from the Survey:

he first section of the survey asks designers what they actually do. Well this is a versatile lot, because on top of designing they also project manage (82%), use authoring tools (55%), do their own graphic design (41%) and carry out testing (55%). Some are prepared to carry out even more specialist tasks: programming (17%), audio engineer (13%), voiceover artist (20%), video director (10%). Around half also run classroom courses and design interventions that don't use elearning. Leonardo would be proud.

Within the scope of the design role, they're also pretty busy: nearly everyone has to work with clients and subject experts, around half design games and simulations as well as the more typical self-study materials; two-thirds do their own scripting, liaise with creative and technical specialists, and do evaluation work.

The second part of the survey looks at careers in instructional design. All but 10% has 2 or more years of experience, with 20% still at it after 20 years. Eighty percent have received some form of training in a learning-related field, 45% at postgraduate level. Of those who gained a qualification, most found this useful in obtaining employment and everyone found what they had learned useful in carrying out their work. Before entering instructional design, 53% had worked in another job in teaching or training, but interestingly, a further18% had been involved in graphics and media. For 10%, instructional design was their first job.

So where do they work? Some 42% work in-house for user organisation, a similar number for elearning content developers, and around 10% for education and training providers.

When asked how they saw their careers progressing, nearly 70% said they wanted to stay in elearning and the remainder in some other aspect of learning and development. Nobody wanted out. Not surprising perhaps, because 46% were extremely proud of their role as an instructional designer and 38% quite proud; and most felt they were adequately or quite well paid. On the other hand, 46% responded 'so-so' when asked how well recognised was the job of instructional designer and 15% thought 'not very

The survey also asked some open questions. The first asked designers what theories or models had been most influential in their work - surprisingly, no theory or model was put forward more than once! The second asked designers what frustrates them about the way instructional design is carried out in practice. Here the principal complaint was that the design process was compromised by poor up-front analysis, unrealistic time pressures and an emphasis on 'getting something out' rather than ensuring quality. The third question asked for threats facing the instructional design profession. Here there was serious concern about the danger of subject-experts bypassing instructional design and generating poor quality materials for themselves using rapid development tools. On the other hand, when asked where instructional design should be heading, there was a realisation that the profession needed to move beyond the limitations of past approaches, embracing new and more exciting forms of online learning and helping others to develop their design skills.

The full survey results are available here. To participate in the survey, which is ongoing, click here.