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Context is a pervasive and potent force in any learning event. Yet instructional design models contain little guidance about how to accommodate contextual elements to improve learning and transfer. This paper defines context, outlines its levels and types, specifies some pertinent contextual factors within these types, suggests methods for conducting a contextual analysis and utilizing its results for instructional design, and outlines future issues for context-based instructional design. The incorporation of a contextual approach to instruction will make our design models systemic as well as systematic.[] This paper examines the role of context in learning and proposes a way of addressing context in the instructional design process. Essentially, we will describe a new design phase we are calling contextual analysis. Our premise is that context has a complex and powerful influence upon successful performance-based learning, and yet is largely ignored (or at the least deemphasized) in most current instructional design models. We posit that this situation is one of the main reasons that design models tend to be more systematic than systemic and that the effects of many instructional interventions are not maintained over time. Our views have been formed not only as a result of our own research and development activities (Richey, 1992;Richey & Tessmer, 1995;Tessmer, 1990), but also from an examination of research and theory from a variety of fields.The recognition of the influence of context is, of course, not new, even though current thinking tends to have rediscovered its impact (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1997;Richey, 1995a;1995b). However, the general orientation to context over the years has changed. Historically, designers and behavioral scientists adopted a minimalist view in which it was assumed that context played a minimal role in facilitating the attainment of instructional goals. This view was especially dominant in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Stokols, 1990). During this period the fundamental structure of our instructional design models was established and most models were based upon the fundamental premise that designed interventions are environmentally neutral and are applicable to all settings. There are other views of the role of context, however. Some have embraced an instrumentalist position in which context is seen as an instrument for promoting the achievement of cognitive or behavioral goals. Thus, learning environments or microworlds can be designed to facilitate the acquisition of problem solving or self-regulation skills. Stokols (1990) suggests a third orientation in which learning environments can be designed more from a spiritualist than instrumentalist view. In these cases the environment becomes an end in itself. Classrooms are conceived as resources that guide exploration; microworlds are designed to facilitate intellectual play. Such diverse contextual orientations for instructional design continue given the current, and sometimes conflicting, influence of notions such as situated l...

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This study investigated the use of rapid prototyping methodologies in two projects conducted in a natural work setting. It sought to determine the nature of its use by designers and customers and the extent to which its use enhances traditional instructional design (ID ). With respect to describing rapid prototyping use, the results pertain to designer tasks performed, the concurrent processing of those tasks, and customer involvement. With respect to describing the enhancements facilitated by rapid prototyping, the results pertain to design and development cycle-time reduction, product quality, and customer and designer satisfaction. In general, the two projects studied show ID ~orts that created products that were usable for a conveniently long period of time without revision; delivered in a shorter period of time than would have been expected using traditional techniques; and received by satisfied customers who had been involved throughout their development. In other words, the rapid prototyping methods lived up to their promised benefits.[] Instructional designers are frequently confronted with demands not only to generate high quality products, but also simultaneously to reduce design and development time. One solution to this dilemma is the use of rapid prototyping (RP) methodologies. RP methodologies should reduce production time because: (a) using working models of the final product early in a project tends to eliminate time-consuming revisions later on, and (b) design tasks are completed concurrently, rather than sequentially, throughout the project. RP methodologies will satisfy customers because they are involved in an extensive formative evaluation of the actual product throughout its design and development. In essence, the thrust of this research was to test these assumptions by studying the use of RP in a natural setting and to suggest a detailed RP design model that would be useful in other environments. THE NATURE OF RPRP involves the development of a working model of an instructional product that is used early in a project to assist in the analysis, design, development, and evaluation of an instructional innovation. Many view RP methods essentially as a type of formative evaluation that can effectively be used early and repeatedly throughout a project (Tessmer, 1994). For others, however, it involves more profound changes in the traditional approaches to design.RP typically has been used in software engineering, but recently others, including instruc, tional designers, have devised ways to apply these methodologies to their work. For example,