ADDIE Week 1: Analysis

For this first week of the ADDIE series, I will be talking about the A in ADDIE: Analysis. It probably goes without saying, but before you make a tutorial or any kind of instruction, it is best to think through what you will be making and why. In this phase, you should think about your learning goals, the target students or group, and where the tutorial will be embedded or used. Some instructional designers suggest conducting an in-depth learner analysis, which can include doing interviews, surveys and a background study. For most academic librarians, it is clear that you will be teaching information literacy to undergraduate and graduate students, so it is not as critical to do this legwork. It does help to have done it once or twice if you are new to an institution or to the field of study you are serving. And let's be realistic--you may differentiate the instruction you are providing to a freshman English composition class versus a capstone Engineering class. You may also want to think about what tools you have at your disposal this point in the process, as well as the time it will take you to learn the software. You can make a timeline for your project during the Analysis phase, too.

Here are some examples of things you might come up with during the Analysis phase and examples of them. Instead of using an information literacy skills example, I am going to use the example of training new graduate student workers to work at the RIS desk. I will focus on just one aspect of this training: using the printer/scanner/copier in the workroom. In this case, I will pretend I am making a training binder with step-by-step instructions, not a video.

Learner Analysis

Without doing an in-depth analysis, I can think about what I do know about my learners. I know that my learners are graduate students, that they work approximately 12 hours a week on the desk, and that they are concerned about getting some homework done while on the desk. They often work without direct supervision on nights and weekends. Since I was part of the hiring process, I can say that 2 have experience working in an office prior to coming to the library and the others do not. I also know their majors. This information tells me that they are going to be motivated, but they may also not remember how to use the copier when it comes time to use it, and that I may not be there to show them what to do. From this analysis, I have decided to create a pamphlet with images on it so they can follow along with my instructions when I am not available to help. This is another part of the Analysis phase--determining the best course of instruction for the instructional problem.

Instructional Goal

You will want to craft an instructional goal that the instruction hopes to solve. Here is an example of an instructional goal:

As part of their office skills training, Graduate Assistants will complete the process of collating and stapling a copied document using the Toshiba e-Studio 356 copier in the Research and Instructional Services Workroom.

Performance Objectives

You may want to think through what success would look like if the learners complete the goal. Here are some sample objectives related to the graduate student example:

Objective 1: Graduate Assistants should be able to define the terms collate and staple in relation to copying and explain the use of collation and stapling documents without error.

Objective 2: With the use of the training pamphlet, Graduate Assistants should demonstrate the use of the touch panel and options on the Toshiba copier to collate and staple a photocopied document.

Sub-objective 2a: Using the graphic on page 3 of the training pamphlet as a guide, Graduate Assistants should be able to identify the location of the collate option on the Toshiba touch control panel and set the collate option to Rotate Collate.

Sub-objective 2b: Using the graphic on page 4 of the training pamphlet as a guide, Graduate Assistants should be able to identify the location of the staple option on the touch control panel and set this option to staple 1 staple in the upper left of the copied document.

Project Needs and Timeline

Another thing to think through in the Analysis phase is how long it will take to create the tutorial. In this case, I can create this instruction in about 3 hours using a still image camera and Microsoft Word. I know how to do this already, so the instruction will not take long to create. In the case of a video, you may have to learn to use Camtasia or a video editing suite. You may have to get that software installed on your computer from an IT department. Think through what you will need to do before you get started.

Many times, I find myself underestimating the Analysis phase, but as you can see, if you start out with a strong analysis of your needs and your learners' needs, you will have fewer surprises later.

Join me next week for a breakdown of the Design phase!