Chapter 5 Summary

In addition to general characteristics such as age, grade level, and topic being studied, I am able to describe my learners in terms of these characteristics:

• Entry Behaviors - These are skills associated with learning the goal that must already be mastered. What should learners already know how to do in order to be successful with the new instruction? In the last lesson I determined specific entry behaviors related to my goal, but there may also be some general entry behaviors that were overlooked in the instructional analysis yet would be useful to mention at this point. For example, the ability to read, or the ability to perform basic math functions.
• Prior Knowledge of the Topic Area - What must learners already know about the topic?
• Attitudes toward Content and Potential Delivery System - What are the learners' impressions and attitudes about a topic and how it might be delivered? In other words, will they have any preconceived notions about the topic or the delivery system?
• Academic Motivation - How motivated are learners to learn the topic, and how much is it likely to interest them? I asked my potential learners these questions:

§  How relevant is the instructional goal to you?

§  What aspects of the goal interest you most?

§  How confident are you that you could successfully perform the goal?

§  How satisfying would it be to you to be able to perform the goal?

      Educational and Ability Levels - What are the achievement and general ability levels of the learners? This helps me determine the kinds of instructional experiences they may have had and their ability to cope with new and different approaches to instruction.

• General Learning Preferences - What types of learning approaches do the learners prefer? For example, lecture, seminar, case study, small-group, or web-based?
• Attitudes Toward Training Organization - How do the learners feel about the organization providing the training? Do they have a positive view of management and peers, or are they cynical about leadership? As a teacher, I already know my students' attitudes about school, but I will keep in mind that some students actually like school, while others may hate it. It's important to know which kind of students I will be interacting with.
• Group Characteristics - Is there heterogeneity within the target population? If so, you want to make sure to accommodate any diversity. Also, I got a general overall impression of the target population based on interactions with them.

This may seem to be like a lot of information to collect about my learners, but it will aid me immensely in providing more meaningful learning experiences for my learners. Some of it I already know, but much of it I culled by talking with my learners. Other helpful methods include surveys, questionnaires, and pretests. Collecting this type of data was much easier because I am their regular teacher as I immersed in the environment, and thus I already knew many of the students that I teach. However, I didn’t immediately assume that I knew the answers to these questions. Remember, when you assume too much you make a ... oh well, we're all familiar with that cliché saying.

The list of learner characteristics I end up with will be used throughout the remainder of the instructional design process to make decisions regarding the various steps. It will help me determine the objectives (next step), as well as play a major role in the instructional strategies I will employ later on. According to Dick and Carey, "They will help the designer develop a motivational strategy for the instruction and will suggest various types of examples that can be used to illustrate points, ways in which the instruction may (or may not) be delivered, and ways to make the practice of skills relevant for learners".

     By now I've assessed my needs to determine the skills and knowledge I want my learners to acquire. From this came a goal statement, and after that I analyzed that goal to identify substeps, subordinate skills, and entry behaviors. The next thing I want to look at is the learners themselves, the context in which learning will take place, and the context in which the learners will eventually use their new skills. This is done by conducting both a Learner Analysis and a Context Analysis. There are three things I want to accomplish by doing this. First, I want to describe the characteristics of my target population. Then I want to describe the contextual characteristics of eventual setting where the learners will use their new skills. This could be a classroom setting, a work setting, or the real world. Finally, I want to describe the contextual characteristics of the setting where the actual instruction will take place.