The study was designed to discover and describe planning strategies used by persons developing continuing professional education (CPE) programs for six professional fields. From the descriptions of practice in the six professions, a general model portraying the program development process was developed and used for comparative analysis. The study…

This study was designed to determine whether instructional treatments specifically designed to match identifiable learner characteristics can produce significantly better learning than mismatched instruction. Instructional treatments for geometry were developed to match learning patterns of individual students, using field-dependence and…

The Workshop on Instructional Development was one of a number of workshops organized on various issues concerning teaching and learning in the Ontario universities. It was held in an attempt to provide some exchange of information among the Ontario universities on the organized activities initiated on their campuses concerned with improving…

The Office of Health Services Education and Research at Michigan State University has clarified the functions of planning, organization, coordination, monitoring, and assessing instructional development projects. Each management function can be applied to the process of instructional development in order for the manager to achieve several…

The need for an empirically defensible means of sequencing instruction appears to have been the primary motivator for research into learning hierarchies. Also, valid learning hierarchies could act as congealing forces in individualizing instructional systems by providing psychological roadmaps for diagnosing students' preinstructional skills and…

Systematic analyses of instructional objectives are requested more and more in educational contexts, but there is little agreement about what such analyses are and what value they have. A few possible criteria for goal analyses are outlined and illustrated: empiricism and comprehensiveness in seeking information, firm rules for decision-making on…

The systematic design of appropriate teaching strategies to bring about desired values is crucially important, and badly needed, in social studies education. Teachers cannot leave the accomplishment of affective objectives to chance or to learning activities planned mainly for cognitive goals. Examples of an affective strategy that develops…

Significant learning occurred when four experimental films dealing with the weather were shown four groups in each of three different populations (high school students, Air Force basic trainees, and college students). However, increased concentration of facts in the films yielded only slight advantages in learning. The films differed in length as…

This report describes the results of a project to conduct research on and to develop instructional materials for use in on-the-job training of professional and non-professional library personnel in scientific and technical libraries. The project began on June 28, 1967 and was completed on May 15, 1969. This report reviews previous research,…

In the context that a general systems approach to the development and maintenance of optimal learning conditions is a point of view rather than a doctrine, two empirical examples are given. To illustrate the desirability of the systems-like approach in studying the nature of learning, the organisms chosen were representative of two widely separate…

For the forseeable future, universities will be obliged to become publishers for non-print media, since the markets for such products, where visible, are small and fragmented, and too risky for commercial enterpreneurship. Thus, for much the same reason as they created their own university presses and broadcast and graphic services, universities…

Full details are presented on Phase I of the three-stage project "Design of Training Systems" (DOTS). A functional descriptive model of the current Naval Education and Training System (NETS) is provided, along with idealized concepts oriented toward a 1980 time frame. Technological gaps and problem areas are noted, but no organizational…

A wealth of instructional information is intrinsic to standardized achievement tests. Most practioners fail to realize the availability or potential of item analysis information or are unable to utilize such information appropriately. Achievement tests have not fully accomplished their purposes if the information derived stops at just test scores…

The state of the art of instructional technology in the Army TRADOC Schools and Training Centers is reviewed. The report: 1) defines instructional technology, 2) describes the current usages of the products and processes associated with instructional technology, 3) assesses the value or potential value of these products, and 4) describes exemplary…

Simulations, which can be defined as formalized techniques for studying complex systems by manipulating the variables in a scaled-down model and observing the results, are useful instructional tools. They provide individualized, self-paced, learner-controlled education, offer discovery experiences which are realistic, and promote problem-solving,…