Gather Information about the Task

Often you will be designing instruction on material that you do not know well (or at all). In those cases, it is important to gather information to be sure that your analysis is complete and accurate. There are a variety of sources of such information, depending on the task you are analyzing.

For some tasks the first pass (and maybe the only one you will need) is your own knowledge. If you are teaching material that is very familiar to you or that you developed in the first place, you may be the best expert on it around. If you have a great new pre-writing technique for your students, it might be unique, but you would still want to analyze it to make sure that it is complete. If you do rely on yourself as subject-matter expert, then you should be sure to check the results. For example, if you are analyzing tasks involving using a computer program, do not rely just on memory. Sit down at the computer and go through the steps, taking notes as you do. Sometimes you might want to have someone else check your analysis, too.

For some tasks, there are numerous sources of documented information. Go to any bookstore and you will find plenty of information on how to use Microsoft Excel, for example. These are often good sources of instructional analysis information. Again, however, you should probably check it to make sure that it is complete and accurate.

For many tasks, you have have to go directly to the people who already do the tasks to gather your information. There are at least three ways you can do this: surveys, interviews, and observations. Surveys of a group of people can help you get an inventory of what tasks they do, the importance of the tasks, and so on. Surveys are rarely useful in gathering detailed information about specific tasks, however.

Interviews can be good to gather verbal information and to understand key concepts. They can also help you get an overview of how to do many kinds of tasks.

Observations of actual performers are often the most direct means to gather information about how people really do things (as opposed to what they tell you, which is likely to be different). This is especially true of psychomotor tasks or those with a significant psychomotor component, since these are more easily observable than cognitive tasks.

Finally, for many cognitive tasks it might be possible to use research techniques developed by psychologists to understand mental activities such as problem solving. Sometimes, a search of the literature will reveal that the task, or one like it, has already been studied by psychologists.