Reviews needs assessment history and extant techniques and offers a model for generating needs assessments based upon five general purposes of front-end analysis and their corresponding types of items--problem finding; problem selecting; knowledge/skill proving; finding feelings; and cause finding. Thirty-three sources are appended. (EJS)

Operationalizes the theoretical foundation of Gagne's model as a component in the instructional design process. The description of design techniques includes a sample media analysis, and a sample sequence worksheet. (JEG)

Describes three types of literature searches conducted as part of instructional design process: instructional materials, content research, and instructional theory reviews. Search techniques to complete each type of literature search are reviewed: card catalog, online, materials indexes, and grapevine searches. An example of an instructional…

Examines the differences between concrete and abstract concepts and their implications for instructional design and teaching. How specific concepts are stored in and retrieved from memory is described, analogies are discussed as an instructional tool in abstract concept learning, and a possible instructional strategy for teaching abstract concepts…

Describes tutoring models and compares instructional strategies classified as organizational, delivery, and management strategies, in those models that have been found effective: Literacy Volunteers, Laubach Literacy, Structured Tutoring, Programmed Tutoring, Peer-Mediated Instruction, and the Audio-Tutorial System. Tutoring cost-effectiveness and…

Examines the implications of cognitive psychology for some of the fundamental components of instructional development. Behaviorism and information processing are compared in their relationships to instructional design, and potential changes for such ideas as objectives, evaluation, instructional taxonomies, content analysis, and instructional…

Summarizes strategies and recommendations included in various prominent instructional theories (behaviorism, Gagne and Briggs' events of instruction, component display theory, cognitive research, and Keller's motivational-design) to provide guidelines for designing the practice component of instruction. (MBR)

Describes functions comprising task analysis process--inventory, description, selection, sequencing, and analysis--and reviews distinctions between the micro/macro level, top-down/bottom-up, and job/learning task analysis processes. These functions and distinctions are combined into a quasi-algorithm suggesting which of 30 task analysis procedures…