Instructional design: missing loop in e-learning educational softwares for medical education

Background: E-learning is one of the new ways to learn nowadays which for efficient e-learning in their formulation of electronic content that is usually presented through instructional software we should care. Not using educational design in designing software content is considered one of the main challenges in e-learning and also failures of this educational system. This study aims to investigate the Missing loop of educational design in educational software in e-learning in educational environments for medical education. Methods: Qualitative content analysis method of deductive type is used in this study. The Society of the study is chosen from MA students of e-learning courses in medical education faculty of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for which the purposeful sampling is used and 60 students are selected. The instrument for the study was Semi-structured interview through which the interviews were held with the individuals about the instructional software used in teaching in a purposeful way. The time for each interview ranged from 20 minutes up to 1 hour and all the interviews were lasted for a week. The interviews were held at the level of theoretical saturation until reaching a response. The questions of the interviews for the students were designed based on the standards of electronic learning equipment which included five levels of content, tracking, educational design, and educational and technical media. Results: The results show that the software used in teaching for the students in medical education faculty of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences has the smallest correspondence with the criteria used from the aspect of electronic learning equipment standards and there are lots of problems especially in some aspects of content, tracking and educational design. The existence of such varied problems in medical educational software is arising from problems in technological approach and educational approach such as educational design. This proves the necessity of attention to the principles of instructional design in both preparation and production of such software. Conclusion: This survey suggests that paying attention to the principles of design in the preparation and development of educational software can, as an approach, respond to some of the educational needs and improve the quality and effectiveness of educational training. Developing the educational software based on educational design patterns is one of the basic challenges of e-learning and also it’s the key to success for this educational system. It’s necessary that executing agencies and organizations and universities of e-learning have special attention to educational design and implementation of scientific approaches to put it into practice.