ADDIE Framework or Design Based Research? | W6 Q2 | Discussion

As Carr-Chellman and Hoadley (2004) point out, both LS and ISD are ‘educationalist’ in nature, they want to foster learning both in and out of schools. This causes several similarities in terms of how these fields achieving this goal. One similarity, for instance, is that both these fields try to conduct their research and practice in highly ‘naturalistic’ settings such as classrooms (Barab & Squire, 2004).

I think a point of contention in the way these fields go about this process. Carr-Chellman and Hoadley (2004) claim that Design-Based Research (DBR) is a a methodology that can bring these two fields together. Yet from Barab and Squire, it seems as though they want to distinguish DBR from ‘formative evaluation or even instructional design models’ (p 5) by specifying that DBR intends to develop theories and not ‘fine tune what works’ (p 9). Interestingly, even Carr-Chellman and Hoadley (2004) mention this difference albeit in a slightly different way. They claim that ISD is ‘interventionist’ in nature and “..describes a variety of methods of instruction… and when to use-and not use-each of those methods” [Which one could consider as fine-tuning!]. According to them, LS tries to develop ‘better theories and science’ then (sic) ‘leading to better interventions’ (p 8). ISD focuses perhaps more on modeling instruction whereas LS more on modeling learning (p 8). Perhaps this difference stems from the difference in historical origins of these two fields. LS is based on cognitive psychology but ISD focuses more on ‘structuring instruction’ (p 9)

During my masters, in my course on instructional systems design, we had an interesting conversation about what the ‘ADDIE’ means, how it’s not a model but an overarching framework, and what it means for ISD (Bichelmeyer, 2005). I feel that there are both similarities differences in the DBR system and ADDIE framework. Both take place in naturalistic settings, tend to be highly iterative in nature, and have components of ‘design’, ‘development’, ‘evaluation’ and so on. As of now, I do see some differences, especially in that ISD isn’t very focused on theory building, perhaps uses ADDIE more than DBR. But, I think ISD, LS, and ADDIE, DBR will converge more in the future. One example, for instance, is that ADDIE wasn’t always used in an iterative manner. But, it is being used so these days. Would LS ever considering ‘fine tuning’ instructional systems and would ISD ever consider building theories for systems design? Who knows. But I think it’s always better to keep that possibility open.

———-
Bichelmeyer, B. (2005). The ADDIE model: A metaphor for the lack of clarity in the field of IDT. IDT Record.