A study was conducted in the teacher training program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington to explore the degree to which novice teachers apply the concepts, principles, and attitudes of ISD (instructional systems development) in their instructional planning and their beliefs regarding the efficacy of ISD principles for planning and delivering instruction and how they actually apply them. Six preservice teacher interns who had completed a course in instructional design and a course in evaluation completed a cognitive mapping task on teacher planning during the summer prior to student teaching. After student teaching they constructed a second cognitive map and completed a questionnaire on teacher planning. Six additional fall semester interns also completed the questionnaires. Student exit performance was determined by grades in student teaching and by university supervisors' summative evaluation checklists. Qualitative evaluations were used to judge the sophistication of knowledge structure for teacher planning represented in the cognitive maps. It was found that the sophistication and stability of the cognitive maps varied widely, and that there were differences between the patterns of responses of the six interns who taught either a kindergarten or a first grade class and the six who taught in grades 3 through 5. Most of the novice teachers' cognitive maps and self-report data revealed a systematic quality to their planning behavior, and the language of several subjects was consistent with the principles and general process of ISD. Three sample cognitive maps and a data table are attached. (21 references) (BBM)