EPISTEMOLOGY/KNOWLEDGE-BASED
THEORIES OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
QIM 501- INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DELIVERY
Prepared by: Ong Mei Yean (P-QM0023/10)
Lecturer: Dr. Balakrishnan Muniandy
EPISTEMOLOGY
Theories of knowledge
 Study of knowledge and justified belief
 The branch of philosophy that studies the
nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and
foundations, and its extent and validity
 Example: Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology,
Subsumption Theory by Ausuble and
Instructional Transaction Theory by Merrill
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DR. M. DAVID MERRILL’S BACKGROUND
He received his Bachelor from
Brigham Young University
 Masters and Doctorate from
the University of Illinois
 Professor of Instructional
Technology, Utah State
University in Logan, Utah.
 Instructional Effectiveness
Consultant
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ACADEMIC
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He is currently teaches online courses at Brigham
Young University Hawaii and University of Hawaii
Author of numerous published articles, books and
papers
His principle contributions:
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TICCIT Authoring System 1970's,
Component Display Theory and Elaboration Theory
1980's,
Instructional Transaction Theory, Automated
instructional design and ID based on Knowledge
Objects 1990's,
Recently First Principles of Instruction.
He is honored the AECT Life Time Achievement
Award
THE CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES
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Concepts:
1.
2.
3.
CDT was not precise enough to allow computer
implementation of expert system technology which
will prescribe instruction
Instructional Transaction Theory (ITT) is an attempt
to provide more precision to CDT thereby making
automated instructional design a possibility
This increased precision also has value for
instructional designers in that it provides a more
precise way to describe knowledge representation,
instructional strategies, and instructional design
prescriptions.
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Principles:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Concern with what should be taught
What are the knowledge components required
for a given type of instruction
How should these knowledge components be
represented to facilitate instructional design.
Identify what are the knowledge components
required for a given type of instruction, and
develop instructional strategies of presentation,
practice and learner guidance to represent
knowledge components to facilitate instructional
design (Merrill, 1999.)
INSTRUCTIONAL TRANSACTION
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All of the learning interactions necessary for a
student to acquire a particular kind of knowledge or
skills" (Merril, 1999)
A mutual, dynamic, real-time give-and-take between
an instructional system and a student in which there
is an exchange of information.
A complete sequence of presentations and reactions
for student to acquire a specific type of instructional
goal.
INSTRUCTIONAL TRANSACTION THEORY(ITT)
It aims to develop instructional algorithms
 An attempt to identify the patterns of the
transactions and develop instructional
algorithms to promote an appropriate
instructional transactions
 Different kinds of knowledge and skill will
require different kinds of transactions
 The necessary set of these instructional
transaction are designed and programmed
once, as conceptualized by a transaction shell
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DIAGRAM OF TRANSACTION SHELL
Transaction
shell
Authoring
Environment
Delivery
Environment
Knowledge
Acquisition
System
Transaction
Configuration
System
Knowledge
Base
TRANSACTION SHELL
Structure of a transaction identifying the
interactions, parameters, and knowledge
representation need for a given class of
transaction.
 There are 2 subsystems
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Authoring environment- users are subject
matter experts and instructors
 Delivery environment- users are students
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INSTRUCTIONAL TRANSACTION SHELL
INSTRUCTIONAL TRANSACTION SHELL
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Instructional Parameter
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Knowledge base
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It controls the nature of the interactions with the learner
It enables a given transaction shell to be customized for a
particular student population, learning environment, and
learning task.
Contains representations of all the knowledge and skill
needed for the transactions
Transaction Manager
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A family of transactions
Depending on the complexity of a given enterprise a
transaction family can be as simple as a single transaction
or it may consist of a large number of transactions all
working together to enable the learner to acquire the
knowledge and skill associated with the enterprise.
KNOWLEDGE OBJECT
knowledge objects are containers consisting of
compartments (slots) for different related
elements of knowledge.
 Merrill determine that the content of knowledge
objects consists of:
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Name: one or more symbols or terms that reference
the knowledge
Portrayal: one or more multimedia objects that will
show or represent the knowledge object
Description: an open compartment into which an
author can place any desired information about the
knowledge object.
Entities
Properties
Description
Mark
Mood
Happy
Sad
Surprised
Angry
Boss
Present
Yes
No
Portrayal
KNOWLEDGE OBJECT
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Jones, Li, and Merrill (1990) identified four types
of knowledge objects:
1)
2)
3)
4)
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Entities: objects in the world, such as device,
persons, creatures, places and symbols
Properties: quantitative or qualitative attributes of
entities
Activities: actions that the learner can take to act on
objects in the world
Processes: events that occur in the world that change
the values of properties of an entity
A knowledge object may also have links to other
knowledge objects
KNOWLEDGE COMPONENTS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
IN CAUSAL NETWORK PROCESS KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURE
A C T IV IT Y
a c ts o n
E N T IT Y
h a s p a rt
c o n tro lle r
has
trig g e rs
p ro p e rty
has
v a lu e
has
changes
PROCESS
c o n d itio n f o r
trig g e rs
p o rtra y a l
PROCESS
GOALS
1)
2)
3)
4)
Effective Instruction: ITT provides a more precise description of
the different kinds of instructional transactions required for
different kinds of instructional outcomes (goals or objectives).
Efficient Instructional Development: ITT builds appropriate
instructional transactions into instructional development tools
will enable automating portions of the instructional-design
process and will enable us to realize this efficiency.
Instructional Learning Environments: ITT represents knowledge
as knowledge objects, which enables the building of a generalpurpose simulation engine. This makes possible a learning
environment builder that enables the efficient development of
these more effective instructional interactions.
Adaptive Instruction: The precise representation of knowledge in
the form of knowledge objects and the representation of
instructional transactions as algorithms for manipulating this
knowledge makes possible instructional strategies that can be
adapted to individual learners in real time as they interact with
the instructional materials.
CONCLUSION
Instructional transaction is all of the learning
interactions for a student to acquire a
particular kind of knowledge or skill.
 Instructional strategies represent various ways
to show, or request the student to provide
the elements of knowledge objects.
 Hence, instructional strategy is an algorithm
for processing the knowledge data of
knowledge objects.
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REFERENCES
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Merrill, M. D. (1999). Instructional design based on knowledge
objects. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and
models: A new paradigm of instructional theory, Volume II, pp. 397424. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Merrill. M. D., Li, Z., & Jones, M. K. (1991). Instructional Transaction
Theory. Educational Technology, 31 (6), 7-12.
Merrill, M. D., Jones, M. K., & Li, Z. (1992). Instructional Transaction
Theory: Classes of Transactions. Educational Technology, 32(6), 1226.
M. David Merrill, Zhongmin Li & Mark K. Jones (1991). Instructional
Transaction Theory: An Introduction. Educational Technology. 31(6),
7-12.
M. David Merrill, Zhongmin Li & Mark K. Jones (1992). Instructional
Transaction Shells: Responsibilities, Methods, and Parameters.
Educational Technology, 32(2), 5-27.
M. David Merrill, Mark K. Jones, & Zhongmin Li (1992). Instructional
Transaction Theory: Classes of Transactions. Educational Technology,
32(6), 12-26.
http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper22/paper22a.html