Analysing the Learning Task

1
Analysing the Learning Task

• Task Analysis or Subject-Matter Analysis provides
  the raw material.
• These structures are examined and typically
  converted into performance goals.
• Goals are further specified as performance (or
  learning) objectives...
• which are further decomposed into learning
  prerequisites (often called enabling objectives)
• All objectives are classified as to their type of
  learning.

2
T.O.s and E.O.s and Prereqs

• Terminal Objectives
• At the end, what should students be able to do?
• Enabling Objectives
• Along the way, what small building-block steps
  should the learner go through?
• Prerequisites
• EOs come before Tos.
• Some EOs come before other EOs.
• What comes before the EOs?

3
By the way...

• Does Task/Subject-Matter Analysis always need to
  precede Goal Analysis?

4
Task Analysis

• How is something done?
• What steps are involved in performing the task?
• If I were to watch an expert perform their job,
  what would I see?

5
Task AnalysisCommon Structures

• Tasks can be either
• Fixed sequence (linear)
• Variable sequence (contingent sequence),

6
Subject Matter Analysis

• "How is the topic organized?"
• "What are the subordinate, coordinate, and
  superordinate relationships?"
• "If I could get an expert to accurately explain
  what they know about a particular subject (the
  pieces and their relationships), what would it
  look like?"

7
Subject Matter Analysis

• Content can be either (or both)
• Taken apart each outcome is examined to see what
  content it is composed of
• Clustered all outcomes are examined to see how
  they might be grouped into meaningful units

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Subject Matter AnalysisCommon Structures

• Sequenced Structures
• ordered or sequenced events, concepts, etc.
• causal relationships
• decision making or branching
• Conceptual Structures
• parts of ...
• kinds of ...
• elements (attributes) of ...

• Theoretical Structures
• descriptive of the world
• prescriptive, complex problem solving

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Task/Subject Matter AnalysisQuick Exercise

• food
• movies
• interviewing skills
• gardening
• auto engines

• children
• geography
• religion
• machines
• word processing

What kinds of structures can you suggest for
these broad domains of skills and knowledge?
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Instructional Design Flow...
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Conducting an Instructional Analysis...

• is very difficult.
• is the search for a workable solution, not the
  best solution.
• interacts with all other analyses (task, goal,
  etc.).
• can change even after instructional strategies
  are selected.
• is an art.

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The main difficulty

• How as task is performed or how a subject-matter
  is organised is
• NOT THE SAME
• as how it is best learned.

13
Classifying Instructional Objectives

• Conducted on both Terminal and Enabling
  Objectives
• Provides a way of matching particular
  instructional activities or strategies with
  particular kinds of desired outcomes.

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Types of Cognitive Outcomes

• Bloom
• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

• Gagné
• Verbal Information(Declarative Knowledge)
• Intellectual Skills
• Discriminations
• Concepts
• Rules (Procedures)
• Higher-Order Rules (Problem-Solving)
• Cognitive Strategies
• Attitudes
• Psychomotor Skills

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Summary of Instructional Analysis...

• Provides elements which somehow need to be
  learned (enabling objectives, subskills,
  subordinate skills, etc.)
• Various approaches
• procedural, hierarchical, combination
• top-down (complex-to-simple)
• bottom-up (simple-to-complex)
• We need to classify enabling objectives by type
  of learning
• The resulting learning hierarchy provides
  starting point for instruction by allowing you to
  state entry skills and knowledge.