ICSA 722
Fundamentals of Instructional Technology
About Learning Hierarchies
After you have identified the desired outcomes of your course (by using task analysis
and/or goal analysis) and have written up the outcomes of the course as formal objectives,
you are ready to determine the sub-tasks or prerequisite learning that must take place.
This prerequisite information can serve several purposes. It can help you to (1) determine
where you should begin your instruction, (2) determine what knowledge learners should
already have before they enter your course, (3) make personnel hiring decisions, and (4)
reuse previously developed instructional materials. Should students fail to learn, a
hierarchy can suggest possible missing prerequisite skills.
Prerequisite learning is often represented in a learning hierarchy. A learning hierarchy is a
visual representation of the relationship between skills. The hierarchy shows how complex
skills are decomposed into skills of lesser complexity. Alternatively, (reading from the
bottom to the top) it shows how relatively simple skills are combined to ultimately
produce more complex skills.
As an instructional designer-to-be, the idea is to select a skill (written as an objective) and
determines what sub-skills it contains. Let's say you work in a training department in
YerBank, a regional bank. YerBank hires new tellers on a regular basis, and a core skill
that a teller needs is to be able to "recognize a check that is correctly written or incorrectly
written." (Basically, what will YerBank accepts as a check.) YerBank's definition of a
correctly written check includes:
a) check is signed and the name matches the name printed on the top of the check
b) check is dated earlier or equal to the current date
c) check has the amount box filled in
d) check is related to a valid checking account.
Since you are a great instructional designer, you made this nifty objective (with
performance, conditions and criteria!) for the skill:
From memory and given a variety of checks (handwritten or printed), the
student will be able to correctly classify a check as correctly written or
incorrectly written. Student should be able to correctly classify 95% of the
instances provided.
The hierarchical question is: "What knowledge or skills must a learner have before he or
she can correctly classify a check?" Alternatively, you can ask yourself: "What skills (if
missing) would make it impossible for the learner to classify the check?" Either question
gets at the same sets of skills.
Try to answer those questions before reading further.
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Before he or she can correctly classify a check, the learner will need to be able to
determine if the signature matches the written name. To determine this, the learner would
need to be able to read both cursive and non-cursive letters (generally something that
most adults can do). We can represent this entire relationship in a hierarchical diagram that
looks like Figure 1.
From memory, the student will be able to
classify a check as correctly written or
incorrectly written.
Can determine whether
signature matches name
Can read cursive
Can determine whether
date is earlier than
current date
Can determine
whether check
has an amount
Can read non-cursive
Figure 1. Partial Learning Hierarchy
To determine the whether the date is earlier than the current date, one needs to know the
current date, be able to read dates written in a variety of formats, and understand the
relative concept "before." Most adults can do this, also. (Note this is not in the diagram.)
Of course, another component is to determine whether or not the "amount" line on the
check contains a dollar amount. What are the subskills of that skill?
Since this is a relatively simple task, most adults would have the skills, and would be ready
for the lesson on classifying checks. Flip this around to double check your hierarchy--if
people could not read cursive, would they be able to determine whether the signature
matched the name on the check? Absolutely not! Therefore, reading cursive is indeed a
prerequisite skill to the concept of classifying checks.
Because this is a "simple" task, it should be fairly obvious to you that these skills are the
prerequisites. In some cases, the skills are more general, yet still important.
Another Example.
A course in "computer interface design" has the objective "Using C++, Visual Basic, or
Director the student will be able to design and program a short interactive game. Visually,
the game should display design principles according to Dr. Jodi Van Gogh's list on page
250. Additionally, the game must accept user input from mouse and keypad. There should
be no bugs in the program--that is, it should run without failure."
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What do you think are the main skills at the next level of the hierarchy?
Undoubtedly, the skills break into two major camps: (1) a set of graphic design skills and
(2) some programming skills in a particular language. That level is easy. It is at the next
level down the hierarchy, that gets at the real heart of the skills--what are the components
of programming skill? What are the components of graphic design skill? This level is likely
to be the most difficult for the instructional designer--this is the level in which we need to
be able to decompose the skills into their sub-skills.
You would find, if you broke the skills skills down far enough, that many skills have some
type of "literacy"requirement. Generally, students need to be able to read, write, etc. I
discussed in class the difficulty that arises when the designer forgets the importance of
these "obvious" skills (as in the case of developing educational materials for first and
second-grade students).
We will do more in class. If you have questions, please e-mail me.
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