Instructional designing has taken the center stage in modern day teaching and learning and thus many researches have been conducted to arrive at the best possible process. Many instructional design strategies as well as models have been developed and among them the Dick and Carey model is considered to be once of the most influential models of all.
The model was first presented in 1978 by Walter Dick and Luv Carey and has been modified in various instances to suite various needs. But, the principle which governs the process in Dick and Carey model would be to deviate from the concept that, each component of a Instructional Design process acts in isolation and, adopt the cognition that, all such components act in a systematic way with each component acting iteratively rather than in a linear manner. Thus, the model consist of ten stages and each stage will facilitate a review process and thus, allowing the other stages to run in parallel, supplementing each other.
The model starts off with ‘identifying the instructional goals’ and thus leads to an ‘instructional analysis’. The analysis will pave way to detail out the learning needs and processes according to the instructional goals. The third phase would be to ‘identify the learners and their learning context’. This would be of much importance as any instructional system should ultimately cater to the potential learners in their own environment and to their convenience. Thus, knowing to whom that the instructions are intended as well as to know their strengths and weaknesses would be of value for its success.
Fourthly, there is a stage in which the ‘performance objectives’ will be developed. These actions would be in clear alignment with the analysis results. Once the performance objectives are in place, the designing should continue towards developing the ‘assessment instruments’ as well as the ‘instructional strategy’.
Then there is the development of ‘instructional material’. This phase will aim at the development of specific materials such as texts, images, diagrams, tables, video…etc and following will be a process of ‘formative evaluation’ of these instructions. The results of the formative evaluation will make way for revised instructions and thereafter to have a ‘summative evaluation’.
But, reaching the summative evaluation level would not be the end of the story but would be the beginning of a feedback cycle in which the earliest phases of the model will be followed as and when necessary.
When following this model, the systematic integration of these components is evident and thus the iterative execution can be seen at every step of the way.
