MSIDT 510: Research Practices in Instructional Design and Technology

Hello!
The other course in my first semester of my CSUF MSIDT program (Fall 2014) was MSIDT 510, Research Practices in Instructional Design and Technology. The university website describes this course as: “Survey course on terms and accepted procedures in qualitative and quantitative inquiry as they apply to instructional design and technology. Students conduct controlled portions of IDT research and prepare preliminary proposals for larger projects.”
Perhaps it would be better to go to the syllabus to see what the real course objectives were:
Upon completion of IDT510, students will be able to:
- Develop an understanding of the foundations of research in Instructional Design and Technology.
- Familiarize themselves with sources of research literature in Instructional Design and Technology.
- Acquire skills in research as it applies to the development and implementation of an instructional product or system.
- Utilize statistical and qualitative analytical methods to Instructional Design Technology applications.
- Develop skill in using current writing and editorial style accepted in Instructional Design and Technology.
That is more like it! Pretty much, I feel that the course met these objectives. Students in our cohort were expected to produce a research project proposal, complete with a literature review and many of the actual parameters to complete the study (without actually completing the study). There were also a number of weekly homework assignments, graded discussion forums, six quizzes and four “problem sets” (also quizzes, really) from the statistics text.
It was a bit of a stretch to relate some of this material to the instructional design process, but the Reiser and Dempsey readings were on topic and were pretty valuable. Also, this course provided a good refresher on what proper research methods are supposed to be.
Supporting the course were three (or four) main texts (reviews of these will be provided soon, I promise):
-- American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the american psychological association (6th ed.). Washington, DC.
-- Smith, S., and Davis, S. (2013). The psychologist as detective:(6th Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.
-- Reiser, R. and Dempsey, J. (2011). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3rd edition). New Jersey: AB Longman.
And a surprise text that the instructor forgot to tell us about until he gave us an assignment from it:
-- Pyrczak, F. (2010 or 2014). Making sense of statistics: A conceptual overview (6th edition). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing
The coursework was a bit harder than IDT 505, as there were many more assignments to keep track of, but it still went ok. I already had a firm foundation in statistics (three semesters of undergraduate work), but the most important things I took away from this class were the overview of the research process, and the ability to present a paper in APA format, which would be essential for the rest of the IDT program.
As with IDT 505, if I had this course to do over again, I would have only changed one thing in the way that I approached it. I already had my final project for the program picked out at the time, and now I wish that I had tailored my research topic and literature review to be work that I could integrate into that project, so there will be a little less research and work to be done at the end.
Thanks for checking out my IDT blog, and next we will take a look at the texts we used for this course. Mahalo!

Fall Semester, 2014

Sorry it has been so long since I posted, things have been crazy around here!

My first semester in the MSIDT program was Fall of 2014, and like the other four semesters, it lasted for 16 weeks. Six units are taken at a time, so there were two courses: IDT 505: Foundations of Instructional Design and Web Authoring Environments and IDT 510, Research Practices in Instructional Design and Technology.

As I have said before, it has been a long time since I had been an undergraduate, so there were a lot of things to get used to. I figured out early on that the syllabus is the bible for each course (I never looked at them in college the first time), and I was constantly going back to look at the schedules and the descriptions of the assignments. I made it a point to cross-reference it with the assignments the instructors gave us each week, so that nothing slipped through the cracks. I kept a separate planner (an old-school paper one) just for school assignments, which was (and still is) a big help.

I had forgotten how to read in a scholarly way, so it took quite awhile to get up to speed on streamlining the amount of time I was spending reading, and trying to make notes only on what was really important. I will be providing overviews of the books in future blog posts.

I enjoyed the web forums, and made sure that I posted on a daily basis, paying attention to threads that had few or no posts, so that everybody had a chance to get feedback on the work they presented. I was thankful that I decided to get a new computer (a Macbook Pro), as it was more robust than my old PC, and was able to run authoring software with no problems.

How did it all turn out? Pretty darned well! I put in a lot of hours (almost 30 per week), but I learned a lot and got grades I was happy with.

Stay tuned to the blog –- I will be writing about both of the classes as well as the texts we used in them.

Mahalo!

Rex