Heuristic Task Analysis on Expertise in Designing Web-Based Instruction

To better understand tacit knowledge underlying experienced Web-Based Instruction designers’ performance, this study utilized Heuristic Task Analysis, a method developed for eliciting, analyzing, and representing expertise in complex cognitive tasks. Three experts, representing three post-secondary institutions offering online programs, were selected for interviews based on the following criteria: 1) WBI design knowledge and skills indicated by formal training/education and experience (i.e., years of experience and number of courses designed); 2) peer recognition; and 3) availability. The interviews focused on three different WBI design cases (one from each institution), and the experts were asked to articulate their underlying thoughts and principles for designing online courses. On the surface, the WBI design processes that the experts used looked more alike than different, entailing major steps such as meeting with faculty, developing content, monitoring courses in progress, and debriefing the instructor and students. The underlying principles and knowledge that guided each expert through the processes, however, were unique in that each expert constructed her own heuristics to accommodate the myriad contextual factors that arose in her work setting (e.g., student population, program size and structure, expert backgrounds). As the number of higher education institutions offering online courses rapidly increases, design and development of Web-based Instruction that is pedagogically sound and cost-effective is of special concern for many researchers and practitioners in postsecondary institutions. On the surface, because WBI has become so prevalent in higher education and the advantages of Web-based learning seem so powerful, proponents of WBI assume that we know how to design and develop successful WBI and that we have an accurate understanding of the processes we seek to support and enhance. As the history of instructional media shows us, however, technological potentials do not easily transfer into direct educational benefits (Cuban, 1988; Zhao & Parks, 1995). Indeed, designing and developing WBI that lives up to the standards of traditional face-to-face instruction is certainly more complex and much less hopeful than a surface view would reveal (Carr-Chellman & Duchastel, 2000). Thus, the purpose of this study is to explicate the expertise underlying the expert performance of designing WBI, and then based on the expertise, to develop practical guidelines to facilitate design and development of quality WBI. Heuristic Task Analysis Heuristics, mostly known as rules of thumb, educated guesses, or intuitive judgments, are strategies and criteria for deciding the most effective courses of action among several alternatives in problem solving situations (Pearl, 1984), such as designing Web-based instruction. Thus, heuristic tasks are "tasks for which experts use causal models—interrelated sets of principles and/or guidelines—to decide what to do when, such as a high school course on thinking skills or a corporate training program on management skills" (Reigeluth, 1999, p. 435). As our society in general and the workplace in particular become more complex, our abilities to deal with heuristic tasks become more critical than ever before. Thus, powerful methods for analyzing the often tacit knowledge underlying complex, heuristic tasks are in great need. Heuristic Task Analysis (HTA) is a method developed for eliciting, analyzing, and representing expertise in complex cognitive (or heuristic) tasks (Reigeluth, 1999). Traditional task analysis methods typically result in a list of tasks and subtasks stated in behavioral terms and framed in a procedural format (Gordon & Gill, 1997; Ryder & Redding, 1993). In contrast, the HTA method primarily focuses on analyzing relatively complicated, ill-structured tasks for which experts use such heuristic knowledge as principles, causal models, and guidelines to decide what to do when, instead of being aware of and deliberately following a set of steps. The HTA is conducted by asking the question, “What is the simplest version of the task that an expert has ever performed?” and “What is the next simplest version?” and so on. Identifying the boundary of the simplest yet still representative version of the task dramatically reduces the amount of knowledge and number of contextual factors that are necessary for expert performance within that boundary. More importantly, starting with the simplest version allows analysts to study the phenomenon of expert performance under simpler conditions and to do so in a reliable fashion (Ericsson & Charness, 1997). Once the simplest version is analyzed, then progressively more complex versions of the task can be determined and analyzed in order to identify the additional knowledge that experts use to perform them. (For more detail, see Appendix A).