Abstract:

The paper aims to model instructional design (ID) path in company environment. We analysed the cases where ID team prepares and provides learning materials to other companies. The proposed model by Talamo et al. (2019) divides the design path in two steps, where the first one, CD (Conceptual/Preliminary Design), allows to reach the BD (Brief Document) and the second one, ED (Executive Design), permits to develop and realize what is written in the BD. This model fits in the cases we described, and it can be ascribed as the rapid prototyping design model (Tripp and Bichelmeyer, 1990; Botturi et al., 2007), which has underlined limits of linear designing. In our context, the two steps satisfied two demands: the first, as underlined by rapid prototyping aims, concerns the project objectives, the second concerns commercial needs, since the conceptual design should reach an alignment between costumer and instructional supplier, and therefore it should persuade costumer and require the least amount and sustainable effort by the supplier.

The research consisted in interviewing members of an ID team. The methods used to define the pattern come from qualitative research (Corbetta, 2014; Sorzio, 2015; Valenzuela-Moguillansky and Vásquez-Rosati, 2019):
1. Phenomenological interviews to ID team members;
2. Use and analysis of produced documents (formal and informal);
3. Participant observation of the instructional design and development process.

The qualitative results were compared, understood, and organized with the scientific literature (Hoard et al., 2019; Rossi and Pentucci, 2021; Tracey et al. 2021) in order to find a common background and language to share and generalized the qualitative observations.

The results of the research show that, although being linearity between Step 1 – Conceptual Design (CD) and step 2 – Executive Design (ED), there is also an iterative process between CD and ED, in fact ED realized what is defined in CD, but CD is defined by what in ED can be realized. The iteration is not only between CD and ED but is also inside each step. In fact, ID team realized the single two steps following three iterative actions: analysis of situation, defining solution and developing solution. Customer must accept the developed solution in CD. After that, ED can start, following and realizing what the customer accepts.

Even in the case of learning materials construction for corporate training, the reasearch confirms what was identified by Laurillard (2013) about the presence in the artefact design of a descriptive component (holistic vision) and a narrative component (analytical vision). However, it highlights how this distinction can lead to a different temporal working organization and can be useful in the learning product design to align designers and stakeholders in an iterative way. That design is not a linear process, but an iterative one has long been an acquisition of research (Botturi et al., 2007). Thanks to the analysis of design practices, the research shows that this iterative process produces different artefacts (not only with less details), in fact the subsequent step takes up and points out the indicators of the previous one. If the awareness of an iterative design process was already present, the paper identifies ways that operationalize this process and supports the ID teams working organization by improving consciousness and quality of their workflow and the production of learning artefacts for workplace learning.

Keywords:

Workplace learning, instructional design, company learning, instructional pattern, learning solution, phenomenological interview, qualitative research.