Current Trends In Task Analysis The Integration of Task Analysis and Instructional Design

This paper is about some major trends that are occurring with respect to the development of task analysis methodology. One clear trend is that better methodologies are being developed to analyze cognitive tasks (e.g., Greeno, 1976; Gregg, 1976: Resnick, 1976; Landa, 1983; Scandura, 1983). Among the most promising developments here are methodologies for analyzing ways in which knowledge should be structured within a student's head in order to most facilitate given types of performance (e.g., Reigeluth, D. Merrill, & Bunderson, 1.978; Rummethart & Norman, t978; Wildman, 1981; Winn, 1978). Much as been written lately about this trend, so it will not be the focus of this paper. Another prominent trend is that computers are increasingly being used as a powerful tool in helping to perform task analyses. However, many recognize that the important technology here is task analysis methodology itself. The computer is merely a tool for using whatever methodologies we are able to develop. Hence, this trend will also not be the focus of this paper, Perhaps the single most important trend in task analysis methodology is the integration of task analysis with instructional design; and this trend wilt be the focus of this paper. But first, it may be helpful to clarify what we mean by task analysis and what we mean be instructional design. Instructional design is the process of prescribing what a specific instructional system should be like. It entails selecting the ins t ruc t iona l strategies, including strategies for sequencing the instructional content and strategies for presenting the individual skills and knowledges that make up that content. Therefore, the term "instructional design" is used here in the more common sense of one phase within the entire instructional systems development (ISD) process rather than in the less common, broader sense of the entire ISD process itself, Task analysis is the process of analyzing all the skills and knowledges that should be taught. The purpose of a task analysis is to provide information about the instructional con~ tent. Such information may be used for purposes of describing a task, for purposes of designing a test on the instructional content, or for purposes of prescribing instructional strategies (including the selection of enabling skills and knowledges. Two ways in which task analysis can be integrated with instructional design are: substantive integration and temporal integration. Substantive integration means that the type of task analysis which you conduct is determined by the type of design that you are planning to use, because different types of task analysis provide different kinds of information, and different designs require different kinds of information. Temporal integration refers primarily to having an instructional development procedure in which analysis activities are interspersed among design activities and vice versa, rather than doing all of the analysis and then doing all of the design.