Creating Distance Learning Courses
Lesson Two
The Instructional
Design Process
Part 2: The Behavioral Approach
This approach frames instructional goals in specific, behavioral, observable terms; the behavioral approach is concerned with immediate, recognizable changes in behavior. Example: If we were concerned with defining in behavioral terms the outcomes of a unit on learning to participate in an online forum on an impending institutional reorganization we would likely want to be sure that learners understood and could use basic skills, such as connecting to the forum, up-loading a document, reading postings made by others, using instructor feedback, and so forth. A good statement of behavioral learning outcomes for this kind of unit might look like this:
Given a computer and appropriate communication software, and asked to submit a document about a pending institutional reorganization plan to an online discussion forum and do further work there, the learner will: (1) connect to the forum within two minutes; (2) up-load a document in a format appropriate for posting; (3) post the document to the forum so that is accessible by others; (4) read at least 4 other postings to the forum; (5) reply successfully to at least 2 other postings; and (6) read instructor feedback on the learner's original posting.
Note several things about the way these outcomes are phrased:
- the statement starts with a description of the conditions under which the behavior is to take place (the use of a computer and appropriate software),
- it describes the task(s) the learner has been asked to perform (submit to and work in an online forum),
- it describes a series of actions that the learner is to be able to carry out to indicate successful completion of the task(s) ("connect...," "up-load...," etc.), ·
- each of these actions is described using a verb that denotes some observable behavior, and
- for each action, there is a criterion or measure of success that defines what an acceptable level of performance is or how it will be evaluated (". . . within two minutes," "read at least four other postings . . .," etc.)
Additional Resources
- Criterion-Referenced Instruction, Robert Mager http://tip.psychology.org/mager.html
- An Electronic Textbook on Instructional Technology: Behaviorism. Irene Chen. http://www.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/ET-IT/behavior.htm
- Instructional Design for Distance Education, Distance Education Clearinghouse, University of Wisconsin-Extension, http://www.uwex.edu/disted/design.html
Return
to Lesson Two.
