Analyzing the instructional components is the first stage of course development. Current instructional design literature shows that the main instructional components include instructional goal, instructional context, learners, and instructional content (Figure 1).



Figure 1. Four Main Instructional Components


   Each instructional component is composed of elements that can guide course developers as they analyze instructional components. The following section is a brief introduction to each component.


The Instructional Goal

An instructional goal is a general statement about what students will be able to do after the instruction is completed. An important part of defining the instructional goal is to identify its learning outcomes. Two commonly used classification systems for learning outcomes are Gagne’s Categories of Learning (Gagne, 1985) and Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom, 1959).


The Instructional Context

The instructional context refers to the context or environment in which the instructional goal will be achieved. There are two purposes in analyzing the instructional context. One is to describe the environmental situation in which the course is delivered. The other is to determine the capacity of elements within that setting. The instructional context includes organizational infrastructure, personnel’s competencies, and learners’ technology. The elements suggested by Davidson-Shivers and Rasmussen (2006) can be a good start to analyze the instructional context (Table 1). 

Table 1. Main Elements in Contextual Analysis

Main Elements

Aspects

Organizational infrastructure

 

 

·         Resources (e.g., available facilities, technology resources, information services and servers)

·         Management functions

·         Organizational culture

·         Ownership of course materials

Personnel’s competencies

 

 

·         Technical, instructional design, and content knowledge of instructor

·         Instructional design support personnel

·         Technical support staff

·         Administrative support staff

Learners’  technology

·         Location of participants (local, regional, widely disbursed in country or world)

·         Locations, urban or rural

·         General technological requirements (speed and memory capacity of hardware; operating system)

·         Required utilities and software applications

 

The Learners

The purpose of analyzing the learners is to identify learner characteristics or individual differences and similarities. Seven elements (Davidson-Shivers & Rasmussen, 2006) can help course developers to identify learner characteristics: general characteristics, motivation, prior knowledge, communication skills, technical skills, abilities and disabilities, and other learner characteristics (Table 2). 

Table 2. Main Elements in Learner Analysis

Main Elements in
Learner Analysis

Aspects

General characteristics

 

·         Gender

·         Ethnicity

·         Age

·         General ability

·         Education level

·         Work experience

·         Reading level

Motivations

 

·         Interest

·         Curiosity

·         Attributions

·         Aspirations

·        Persistence/Conation

Prior knowledge

·         Content familiarity

Communication skills

·         Written communication ability

Technical skills

 

·         Keyboarding skills

·         Comfort level

·         Familiarity with file types (e.g., documents, PDF, SWF, JPEG, etc.)

·         Skill and comfort levels with the internet and the web

·         Navigation and search skills

Abilities and disabilities

·         Physical impairments

·         Mobility impairments

·         Visual impairments

·         Learning disabilities

·         Hearing disabilities

·         Speech impairments

·         Seizure disorders

Other learner characteristics

·         Personality traits

·         Learning styles

·         Anxiety traits

 

The Instructional Content

Analyzing the instructional content is the final phase in instructional component analysis. The main purpose of this phase is to identify skills that students must perform to achieve the instructional goal. While the Categories of Learning (Gagne, 1985) and Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) are often used to identify expected learning outcomes of each instructional unit, course developers also analyze the instructional content by asking the following questions:

·         What must the students already know or do to accomplish the task?

·         What are the sub-skills?

·         What is the outcome level for this skill?

·         What are the relationships of these particular prerequisite skills to each other?

·         What is the skill order and sequencing?