First And Second Generation Instructional Designs *
Instructional Transaction Theory *
Knowledge Object-Based Development *
Appendix A: A Telephone Conversation With Dr. Merrill (9/23/97) *
Appendix B: Record Of Publication Search *
Dr. Merrill's quest for a science of instruction is presented and the instructional principles that he proposes are explained. Instructional Transaction Theory (ITT), Dr. Merrill's most recent influential contribution, is described in terms to its origins in the Second Generation Instructional Design, its components of knowledge objects and instructional strategies, and its benefits of effective, efficient, and appealing instruction. The paper concludes with Dr. Merrill's vision of where the field of instructional design ought to concentrate on. And that is the automation of instruction development and delivery.
I had the privilege and honor to conduct a 40-minute telephone interview with Dr. Merrill. A transcript of this interview is included as Appendix A of this paper and is used as a reference throughout.
Dr. M. David Merrill is a Professor in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University. He is also the research director of the ID2 Research Group; a research group dedicated to the development of a Second Generation Instructional Design.
Dr. Merrill's contributions are many and are magnificent. He is the principle designer of the TICCIT CAI Authoring System. He is the author of the Component Display Theory and Instructional Transaction Theory. Dr. Merrill has published 9 books and more than 40 articles.
In 1964, Dr. Merrill received his Ph.D. in Psychology of Classroom Learning from the University of Illinois. He has held faculty positions in George Peabody College for Teachers, Brigham Young University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, and Utah State University.
Dr. Merrill is a champion of the science of instruction. He is frustrated with all of the philosophical discussions concerning instruction and instructional system development that lack scientific merit. He proposes a few instructional principles and lays the foundation for inventing instructional design that is based on the science of instruction (Merrill, Drake, Lacy, Pratt, & ID2 Research Group, 1997e).
In their paper "Reclaiming Instructional design" (Merrill et al., 1997e), Dr. Merrill defines the science of instruction as the discovery of the instructional strategies that are appropriate for the acquisition of certain knowledge and skills. He also defines the instructional design technology as inventing instructional design tools and procedures that incorporate the scientific principles of the science of instructions.
According to Merrill et al. (1997e), the principles of the science of instruction are:
First And Second Generation Instructional Designs
Dr. Merrill considers his work on Component Display Theory as an example of the first generation instructional design work (Merrill, Li, & Jones, 1990). Most of the first generation instructional design work is based on the early work of Gange and his conditions of learning (Gagne, Briggs, & Wager, 1992).
First generation designs, however, leave much to be desired. The most important shortcoming of the first generation design is its lack of precision (Merrill, 1997d- ID2, ITT, and Knowledge Objects). Precision is necessary if we want to automate much of the instruction development and delivery activities. Other shortcomings of first generation design include lack of systematic ways to identify and capture contents and its structure. First generation instructional design provides little or no prescription on how to organize and sequence course materials. Lastly, first generation instructional design did not take into account the interactive nature of the present day technologies where learners are active, as opposed to passive, participants in the learning process.
To address these limitations, Dr. Merrill and his fellows at the Utah State University Department of Instructional Technology developed the Second Generation Instructional Deign Theory (ID2) (Merrill, Li, & Jones, 1990b). Second Generation Instructional Design builds upon and extends the foundation of previous work on instructional design by attempting to provide solutions to the first generation instructional design shortcomings.
Specifically, ID2 offers the precision that is needed for instruction automation. This automation would allow us to teach whole and integrated body of knowledge and skills as opposed to teaching individual elements of knowledge and skills. ID2 also provides a prescription for the selection of interactive instruction strategies as well as for the selection of sequences and organizations of instructional transactions.
Instructional Transaction Theory or ITT (Merrill, 1997d- ID2, ITT, and Knowledge Objects) is the name given to this Second Generation Instructional Design.
Instructional Transaction Theory
Instructional Transaction Theory is an evolving instructional design theory developed by Dr. Merrill and his associates at Utah State University. It is the theoretical outcome of a concentrated effort to develop second generation instructional design systems.
An instructional transaction is best described as a pattern of interaction between a learner and an instructional system (Merrill, Li, & Jones, 1991). Different kinds instructional transactions promote learning of different kinds of knowledge and skills. In this respect, instructional transactions could be considered similar to Gange conditions of learning, albeit more precise conditions.
Merrill considers instructions as made of both an algorithm and data (Merrill, 1997c). The algorithm is the instructional transaction while the data is the content to be learned. An instruction transaction of a certain kind can promote learning of many similar knowledge and skills contents that are of the same kind. Thus, an instructional transaction is developed once and reused against many contents if these contents are of the same kind.
Merrill has discovered at least thirteen different classes of instructional transactions (Merrill, Jones, & Li, 1992). Some of these transactions are the Identify, Execute, Judge, Classify, Decide, Propagate, and Discover instructional transactions. Instructional transactions that belong to one of these instructional transaction classes have similar interaction patterns with the learner and require similar representation of the knowledge and skills to be learned.
For a given instructional goal, an instructional transaction incorporates the appropriate knowledge and skills structure, the appropriate strategy for presenting this knowledge structure, the appropriate strategy for providing practice opportunities to the learner, and the appropriate strategy for providing guidance to the learner. All of these constituents of the instructional transaction are so selected in support of the given instructional goals (Merrill, 1997c).
Merrill states that without the strategies for presenting knowledge, strategies for providing practice, and strategies for providing learner guidance, we do not have instructions, we have only information (Merrill, 1997d- Instruction vs. Information). He adds that information alone does not teach, instruction does.
The instructional transaction theory, through its transaction configuration system, enables instructional designers and developers to customize the resulting instructions. By supplying values for many instructional parameters, instructional designers and developers control the behavior and the interaction patterns of an instructional transaction. This allows for instructional customization for a particular group of audience or for a particular learning experience.
Merrill states that the advantages of applying the Instructional Transaction Theory to the development and delivery of instructions are producing effective, efficient, and appealing instructions (1997, 1997b, & 1997d- ID2, ITT, and Knowledge Objects).
Knowledge Object-Based Development
The Instructional Transaction Theory makes two important assumptions about the knowledge and skills it seeks to teach. The first assumption is that knowledge and skills could be decoupled from the instructional strategy used to teach this knowledge and skills. The second assumption is all knowledge and skills could be made to fit into a given knowledge structure (Merrill & ID2 Research Group, 1996).
Such knowledge structure is known as Knowledge Objects in the terminology of Instructional Transaction Theory. In ITT, all the knowledge and skills are classified into three types: entity, activity, and process object types (Jones, Li, & Merrill, 1990c).
An entity object represents what we know about a person, a device, a place, or a thing. An activity object is made of steps that the learner executes against an entity object and causes the state of the entity object to change. A process object captures the events and the changes they cause to an entity object. Different media resources could represent each knowledge object. Examples of media resources include text, video, audio, or a combination of these.
To design instructions using knowledge objects, an instructional designer or a subject matter expert first creates all the knowledge objects needed for the acquisition of the subject matter. She then links and associates these object together to form what Merrill calls an elaborated frame network. Once the knowledge objects and their elaborated frame network are determined, the instruction strategies or instruction transactions to deliver these objects are determined and sequenced. If it is required to customize instructions for a given audience or a given experience, then the parameters of the selected instructional transactions are modified accordingly. The result is an effective, efficient, and appealing instruction.
It should be noted that most of the activities of developing and delivering instructions describe above are automated. This automation is only possible because of the precision brought by the second generation design and the ITT theory.
Dr. Merrill believes the future of instructional design ought to be in the use of design tools that build automated instructional systems (Merrill, 1997d- Vision).
"We ought to be training people in our graduate programs to build tools like the ones we tried to build that enable everyone, you know, all the non-teacher teachers to be able to design effective instructions" says Merrill in his telephone interview (Merrill, 1997d- Vision). He believes that the current authoring tools are merely programming tools, because they do not provide built-in instructional strategies that could be used over and over again with contents with similar instructional goals.
Dr. Merrill also believes that, while the Internet is a tremendous source of information, we still have a long way to go before we can use the Internet as an effective instructional delivery tool (Merrill, 1997d- Vision).
Appendix A: A Telephone Conversation With Dr. Merrill (9/23/97)
| Osama | I turn the recorder on. Let me first introduce myself briefly. As I mentioned to you my name is Osama Morad and I am attending the University of Maryland graduate program in Instructional Systems Development. |
| Dr. Merrill | Ok |
| Osama | I am taking the 602, introduction to instructional systems development under the direction of Mr. Hodell, Charles Hodell. And a research requirement of this class, is to do some research and presentation about a prominent figure in the instructional development field and I chose you because I am inspired by your work. |
| Dr. Merrill | Thank you |
| Osama | I would like to thank you for allowing me this opportunity. Hopefully, this will not take no more than 20 minutes. So, I will go ahead and start. I am inspired by your work in ID2, ITT, and all of the other contributions, but in your opinion, in your own words, how would you characterize your work and your contributions to the ISD field? |
| Dr. Merrill | That is a hard question. Well, I guess I can characterize it best by telling you what I tried to do all my career. And that is. When I was serving as a missionary for the Mormon church, I became fascinated by the fact that some of our missionaries were really effective teaches and others were really embarrassing teachers. I came home from that experience deciding that I would go find out what makes a really effective teacher, So, |
| Osama | What year was that? |
| Dr. Merrill | That was 1959. |
| Osama | Oh, Ok |
| Dr. Merrill | A long time ago. |
| Osama | Yes. |
| Dr. Merrill | And so I finished my degree in secondary education and psychology and I was little disappointed that nobody seemed to know what we really need to do to design effective instructions. I went to grad school and got a Ph.D. by 1964 and again nobody was addressing the question, I thought was most relevant, and that is how you design effective instruction material. You need to recognize that period of time was before instructional design was a very recognized field. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | And, so, I just then decided that I would try to figure out what makes for effective instructions. That was the question I had then, the question I have now. I think I know a little bit now that we did then. And the things I have written, the research I have done, the tools we have developed have all been oriented toward that goal. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Dr. Merrill | I suppose the thing that most characteristic of my current work but certainly has not changed from the early sixties is that I believe there are different kinds of outcomes. This is the Gagne assumption. |
| Osama | Right |
| Dr. Merrill | I believe that those different kinds of outcomes require different kinds of instructional strategies. I believe that if you do have those instructional strategies, that people will not learn as effectively, and efficiently, and appealing as they could. I believe that most of the instructions that we see out there does not adequately use these strategies. I believe that we do not completely understand these strategies and need a great deal more research and work to understand what they are. |
| Osama | Ok |
| Dr. Merrill | I am disappointed by the flight from scientific approaches and the attraction of more philosophical approaches, relativistic approaches, which seems to me to be anti-science. Which I can not just subscribe to. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | So, I guess what characterizes my work is a scientific desire to know how we design effective, efficient, and appealing instructions. Want to know more about that orientation read the preface of my book Instructional Design Theory, which you may have already done. |
| Osama | I read in the paper that you have on the web site |
| Dr. Merrill | Reclaiming Instructional design? |
| Osama | Actually this is my second question. Yes. From whom are you reclaiming instructional design? |
| Dr. Merrill | From those instructional designers who have deserted a scientific approach. Who are pursuing radical constructivism and other isms which seem to me to not incorporate what we know about the finds of instructions. |
| Osama | Very well said. Who is reclaiming the instructional design? Is there a group or a new branch in the science of instructional design? |
| Dr. Merrill | No. Mostly it was a pun. That was really trigged because one of former students actually gave a paper in a convention in which he was not sure he was an instructional designer anymore. |
| Osama | Hmm |
| Dr. Merrill | Was not sure that instructional design was really possible. He did not believe that there was such a thing as the science of instructional design. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | So, that is what really trigged that. So, a group of my associates and I who were at that convention together sat in a hotel room brainstorming. And before I went to bed that night, that paper was the result. |
| Osama | Yea. I think I was very powerful, extremely powerful that one liner: "Reclaiming Instructional design" |
| Osama | Let me ask you another question. What is the difference, in your opinion, between instruction and information? And why can not people learn from just information. |
| Dr. Merrill | Information obviously is part of instruction, but it is not complete. I think that in order for us to have instructions, we need to add three things to information. One of those things is appropriate knowledge structure, which means we need all the information we need to learn a given set of skills. Information by itself, frequently, does not include all of the necessary information. And without an adequate concept of the knowledge structure, the necessary knowledge for a given kind of outcome, it is unlikely that the information will have all of the information necessary. So, that is the first thing is that we need appropriate knowledge structure relationships and organization. The second thing we need is relevant practice. Your grandma taught you that practice makes perfect. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | And we all know that. And certainly in the sports field, we understand it. For some reason in education we do not seem to understand it. That you can not adequately learn any given skill or any set of knowledge without appropriate practice. Information does not include practice. That a practice of course needs to include feedback and other aspect, you know. That practice has to appropriate for the scheduled learning. A practice necessary to learn to hit a baseball is not the same as the practice to learn to solve algebraic equation. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | Ah. So we need a practice that is relevant, not only content-wise, but in terms of the kind of knowledge that is involved. And third, we need learner guidance. We learned through millennia teaching one another that people do not learn efficiently in the workplace and on the job alone. That is why we set up schools, that is why we have training, that why spend million of dollars to have people sit in classrooms and listen to people talk. Because somehow we believe that if you have appropriate guidance and somebody can help you can acquire the skills faster, if someone is looking over your shoulder and tutoring you, you can learn it faster, if somebody is giving you the information you need you can learn it faster. Unfortunately, information is unguided. It does not have that information. It does not have that guidance to give you what you need to help you understand what you need, to assess what you need and to provide it for you. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | So, it seems to me that instruction has three components that information does not. Appropriate knowledge structure, appropriate practice, and appropriate guidance. |
| Osama | Let me follow up on that. As far as the practice component. Do you refer to that as simulation or real life practice? You refereed in your example about somebody learning how to play baseball. |
| Dr. Merrill | I think. Yes, all of the above |
| Osama | Oh. |
| Dr. Merrill | Obviously, certain areas, simulation is a better way to practice because we can put the person in a situation which can not easily accomplished in the real world. We can change the frequency of occurrence. If I am practicing in the real work, then I am going to practice the common easy things the most and the most difficult things the least. In training, I thought that we need to practice the most difficult things the most and the easiest things the least. So, the advantage of simulation is that it provides an opportunity to practice, to change the natural occurring order of things. It also allows me to practice things which might be dangerous or impossible to do in the real world or too expensive to do. It allows more people engaged in practice that might be impossible for a very expensive device or very expensive machinery. So, simulation is obviously a very good way to learn skills and processes. But it is not the only way. And if I had the opportunity to practice in the real world, then obviously that is part of what I want to do as well. And obviously the purpose of training and or education is to give people the skills that need so that they can operate effectively in the real world. So, simulation is part of practice, but simulation is not the only kind of practice. Certainly If I am learning to classifying a concept, I do not need simulation to do that. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | You can see lot of examples and non-examples and be able to classify them. If I am learning information about something or the part names the part of something, I do need simulation to practice that. I need to practice the name of the part. So, those people that advocate that simulation is the solution and that is the only kind of training that we need are also a lot off base. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | Because we need different kind of practice for different kinds of outcomes. |
| Osama | And, and back to this issue of practice. What is your definition of practice? |
| Dr. Merrill | My God, several definitions of practice depending on what level you want to talk about. I guess the top level, kind of man in the street level, as practice is doing several times the kinds of skills that were exercised in the real world or it is demonstrating that I acquired the knowledge that I will need to get into this world. So practice, for me, means any kind of exercise, simulation in which the student is providing part of the information or doing an activity or predicting an outcome or engaging in those activities which I am trying to train him to do. |
| Osama | Ok. Yeah, I understand. |
| Osama | Can you describe to me, at the top level, what is the relationship between ID2, ITT, and knowledge object-based instructional development? |
| Dr. Merrill | Yeah, ID2 is the name of our research group. It stands for Second Generation Instructional Design. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Dr. Merrill | It came about because when we started to try to built automated instructional design systems, we found that first generation instructional design of which my work in component display theory as an example, Gagne work as an example was not sufficiently precise in order to allow us to built automated computer design systems. So we said we needed a new generation of instructional design which is more precise and would lend itself to computer applications or expert systems. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | But we started say we needed a new generation of instructional design and pretty soon started to call the group the second generation instructional design group. And someone just abbreviated it to ID2, and that is kind of our logo now. So, that is the name of the group and the general approach that were taken. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | Within ID2, we have developed. We started to develop what we call second generation theory. So, ITT or Instructional Transaction Theory was the first name that we gave to this work in trying to develop a theory that would be a second-generation theory. So, Instructional Transaction Theory or ITT is an example of our attempt to build a second-generation theory. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | Knowledge objects are a component of ITT. Knowledge objects are the architecture, which we then settled on as a way of representing knowledge within Instructional Transaction Theory. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | The way that would allow us to be more precise in the description of what people need to learn. |
| Osama | You mentioned earlier that there is a book about the new generation of Instruction design that you have written. |
| Dr. Merrill | Actually, the book is about the old generation. |
| Osama | Oh. |
| Dr. Merrill | There is a book called Instructional Design Theory. |
| Ok. | |
| Dr. Merrill | It is published by Ed technology which is a collection of my papers for the 20 years it was written and that is really the presentation of the Component Display Theory which is my |
| Osama | Older |
| Dr. Merrill | First generation theory. There are a set of papers most of which are referenced in our web site that describe second generation instructional design theory. We have a new set of workshops that we are initiating in November to teach second generation instructional design theory or ITT. And I am in the process of working on a book and/or a CD ROM, I am not sure what form it will take yet, that will present ITT and archive it for the future. |
| Osama | Do you have any expectation when that book or that CD-ROM might be available? |
| Dr. Merrill | Next month. |
| Osama | Oh. I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | It will available when it is available. The workshops will be available starting in November. So there will systematic presentations of this idea starting in November. The book is coming along as it comes along. And I suspect it will be a couple of years. I am planning to take sometime to put that book together probably next year. So, this year I am going to do the workshops, get a lot of feedback from people as to how well it works, allow me to change some things. Then I probably try to capture it all the following year. That is sort of the game plan right now. |
| Osama | Ok. Very good. |
| Osama | What are the advantages of developing instructions based on knowledge objects as opposed to developing them in the traditional way? From two points of view. From the instructional designer point of view and from the learner point of view. |
| Dr. Merrill | From the instructional designer point of view which is the point of view which motivated my work in this area. Level one, first generation instructional design is fairly generic. Gagne, in my conversations with him, indicated that his goal was to try to present a general set of guidelines based on learning theory that would guide and support instructional designers in building instructional systems. My work in Component Display Theory was an attempt to clarify some of the things I thought were confusing in Gagne. But, again it meets the general guideline. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | Second generation instruction design theory is an attempt to be much more precise. And to define knowledge and strategy in a way that would lend itself easily to computer algorithms. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Dr. Merrill | To being stored on a computer. The spin-off of that, and the reason we decided to launch this set of workshops, is that the very precision which allows us to build computer programs to automate some of these things also clarifies for the designer how to do design. So, If I can specify design as an algorithm, that certainly provides a much better guideline for a designer than a more generic general kind of prescription. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | So, I think there is a spin-off there. While our motivation was to create computer systems to do this, the spin-off is that it is a much precise way to do instructional design. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | Now from the learner point of view, all else being equal, the learners should not be able to tell the difference. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | However, first generation instruction design frequently leaves something to be desired. And the resulting instruction frequently does not adequately employ appropriate instructional strategies, facts, knowledge structure and things that we previously mentioned. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Second generation instructional design theory, because it is more precise, because it is more prescriptive, and because it is more algorithmic is much less likely to result in ineffective instructions. Because it is more likely that the knowledge representation would be complete, that the practice will be appropriate and the learner guidance would be appropriate, because it is based on algorithms which are very explicit and are not ambiguous | |
| Osama | Yeah. And it will be also faster to develop. That is also a benefit to the learner. |
| Dr. Merrill | And if you have been to the workshop that we are tried to do, second generation instruction design, yes. Then You get a tremendous advantage in terms of efficiency. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Dr. Merrill | The fact that we are storing the algorithms in the system already as pre-built computer programs means that much of the programming that now goes on using an authoring system like Authorware, IconAuthor, Quest, or Toolbook is no longer necessary. And therefore there is a tremendous efficiency. The other efficiency of the design side. Because the algorithms are already built in, and the strategies are built in, and the knowledge required for those strategies is specified, it is more likely that the designer would be able to find the appropriate knowledge faster and easier than they would have been if they had to do from scratch. |
| Osama | Ok. Very good. |
| Osama | In a recent conference, you presented a paper on learning-oriented instruction development. How does this learning-oriented development contrast with learner-oriented development? |
| Dr. Merrill | In that paper which is also on our web site. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | There is big emphasis, as you are well aware, on the learner these days. In fact there are people that are saying those of us that have been around for 30 years were ignoring the learner which is think is stramineous and I do not think that is true. |
| Osama | Ok. |
| Dr. Merrill | But nevertheless, everybody is really emphasizing the learner; learner control is all the rage, the empowerment of learners. These are all current terms. But the thing I see with most of these programs is that they are empowering the learner to do irrelevant things. You know, clicking around in the internet is not empowerment, it is confusion. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | And so it seems to me then what I was trying to do is make a contrast. If you are interested in the learner, you ought to have learning ing-oriented strategies, which means we carefully define what is necessary for a learner to acquire a given set of skills. We ought to build those strategies into our system so that we can be pretty well assured if the learners engaged into the strategy that was built into the system, they would acquire the skills that the strategy was designed to teach. And therefore, these are learning-oriented. Most of the authoring systems that are out there are not authoring systems at all. They are merely programming systems. They have a punch of algorithms built in, but there is no connection between what the algorithms do and the goals of instructions. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | So, the designers are left on their own to apply those algorithms however they see fit. If they happen to be well-trained in instruction design and know appropriate strategies, then the resulting instruction is effective. Too often the case, they are not and they use these very expensive systems to build the page turning system with few multiple-choice questions, which is not appropriate instructions. |
| Osama | Right. In a learning-oriented development, there would be several learning strategies, but the learner is able to choose among the different strategies. |
| Dr. Merrill | Well, it is up to the designer to be able to choose among the strategies. Because we are not taking about learner strategies which are based on learning styles. We are taking about those strategies that are necessary to acquire a particular kind of learnings. So if I want somebody to learn the names of something, |
| Osama | Oh, I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | then it does not matter who the learner is, what their background is, what their culture is. Human beings, as far as I know, are wired pretty much the same way. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | If you do not provide the information they need to name the parts of something, then they are not going to learn the names of parts of something. So the idea is that strategies which are appropriate for a given outcome is determined. Then what ought to be done is for the designer in designing the instruction or the learner learning to say I want to learn the names of something, |
| Osama | Yeah |
| Dr. Merrill | then the appropriate strategy ought to come up and after the fact that is provided by that strategy, the learner should know the names of something, or how to classify something or how to execute a procedure, or whatever. |
| Osama | Yeah. Very good, I understand now. Very good. |
| Osama | What is your vision for instructional system development in the next few years? Where do thing the field is going? |
| Dr. Merrill | Well, I am kind of a gadfly at the profession of instruction technology because I believe that we are probably making a mistake in training people to go out just design instruction with these expensive tools. I think, you know, we probably will continue to do that. I think the real future of the field. Now this not a prediction of where I think I will go really, but where it ought to go. So you understand the difference. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | Where is it going may be in the opposite direction. But where it ought to go, in my opinion, is we ought to be training tool designers. We ought to be training people in our graduate programs to build tools like the ones we tried to build that enable everyone, you know, all the non-teacher teachers to be able to design effective instructions. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | I think we need the equivalent of the automobile. Nobody anymore knows anything about auto mechanics. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | These machines have become so reliable that we can all use them and we do not ever think they will break down and so. They do not very often. However, instruction is way back in the primitive days where we have to design it from scratch and we have to have a tool kit. I think we need a tool to say we know how to teach certain things. There are probably infinite variety implementing the scientific principle on how to teach somebody concept. There is probably infinite variety of ways that supposed scientific principle can be implemented. I like to see 52 of them that I can choose from, all of which have built in instructional strategies. Right now there is maybe one or two. |
| Osama | This is like what happened in the industrial revolution where people build machines that can build machines. |
| Dr. Merrill | Exactly. That is where the future ought to go. Will it go there? We will probably not live long enough to see it. |
| Osama | No. I think you are starting a revolution. And I am one of the supporters. |
| Dr. Merrill | Good. I am trying to start a revolution. And I told my associates and colleges, when they put me in the home and I am all comatose come home and tell me because I maybe able to understand. |
| Osama | My second question. What are your views on the explosive interest in the online learning and web-based training? |
| Dr. Merrill | Restate the question. State it again. |
| Osama | What are your views on the explosive interest in online learning and the web-based training? |
| Dr. Merrill | My views can probably best be demonstrated by a diagram, if you can picture this on your mind. Picture a chart. And on the coordinates of the chart, the y-axis of the chart is amount of activity and on the x-axis of the chart is time. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | If we go back to about the 1950s. At the end of the 50s, middle of the 50s there was huge amount of activities. We have a peak there called educational television. And we have a peak for programmed instruction, and then we have a peak for CBT, now we have a peak for multimedia, now we have a peak for Internet. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | Now, underneath that, if you draw just a line that has a barely positive slope to it. That is what we know about teaching and instruction. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | You know. If you draw that all the way across the 1950s till now over this 40, 50 year period, there is a slight increase on how much we know. I am interested in that bottom line. |
| Osama | I see. |
| Dr. Merrill | And I think that the Internet interest right now, there is no question that is a phenomenal information source. I spent two hours last night helping my son hunt for a job. You know, he is in TV broadcasting. We were able to find a tremendous amount of information to help him put a resume on line. I mean, this is a tremendous asset to us. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | Will it revolutionize instruction? I do not think so. It just like we have libraries. I think we are in the same mode that Garnegie was in at the turn of the century. When he checked his million of dollars to put libraries into every little town. Assuming that kids would flock to the libraries. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | I think 10 years from now, we going to have to assign kids to look at the Internet. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | You know. Once we control pornography and the other things that kind stipulate them to get out there. I think that people get generally bored with information in a hurry. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | And so unless we do something to actually promote good instruction, I think we going to see the Internet as a great resource. I think it will continue to be a great information resource. It will probably replace or supplement what we now get through television and other places. But, as far as an instructional tool, we have got long ways to go in terms of putting adequate instruction on the Internet. So, I am a very big fan of the Internet, but just like all the other technologies, I carefully position myself on that bottom line when the roller coaster is on the top. |
| Osama | My last question is on the personal side, and you talked about that briefly at the very beginning. How would you describe yourself, your career path and motivations in your career development? |
| Dr. Merrill | Ah. |
| Osama | How do your describe yourself? |
| Dr. Merrill | How do I describe myself? |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | Basically an optimistic person. I was interested, you know as I indicated at the beginning. My interest was primed when I was a missionary. I came home wanting to know how to teach people. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | That single question has never left my mind. I also think, as I also explain in the preface to my instructional design theory book, I think partly it is a game. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | I play the game very seriously, but I do not take myself very seriously. Nor do I take anybody else very seriously, which sometimes aggravates them. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | But, to me it is fun to try to figure out how we help one another to learn. I do not think we know very much. The more I know the more I know we do not know. |
| Osama | Right. |
| Dr. Merrill | But, I think it is a fascinating enterprise. I never worried about. In fact, the fact people like you call me up and know about my work is a bigger surprise than anybody. I figured out I end up teaching at junior college somewhere. |
| Osama | Ah. |
| Dr. Merrill | I have never really been very interested in promotions or in trying to be prominent in society, or. All I ever tried to do is just to share what I am thinking about with people and surprising to me people started to read what I was writing. |
| Osama | Yes. |
| Dr. Merrill | I am still not sure that we have any answers. I am grateful for the opportunity for the dialogue. I love to have the opportunity to talk to you for example to share my ideas. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | Because it helps to share them up. |
| Osama | True. |
| Dr. Merrill | But, for me, my motivation is not fame, or money, or prominence. I am still motivated by learning how people learn. And whether people are listening or not that is sort of a side benefit. Does that help explain? |
| Osama | Exactly. Exactly. And that same word. If I may say so. When I was little I learned this little story about Alexander the Great. He was walking down the streets of Athens and he saw this man sitting there. So Alexander asked him "what can I do for you? Anything you would ask me I will do it for your". So he told Alexander the Great "just stay away from my light". |
| Dr. Merrill | Ha. Ha. |
| Osama | So. That is exactly what you said. You will do what you have to do and whether people respond or not that is a side issue. |
| Dr. Merrill | That is right. |
| Osama | That is very good. |
| Dr. Merrill | Exactly. So, you know. For me, you know, I have colleges around me. They are worried about getting the next publications. I have never thought about that. I have people worried about how do I get tenure. The only time I ever thought about that is when I had to fill out a bunch of forms once. When I learned how to do that, I have a file cabinet full of stuff, so it has not been an issue. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | Writing another paper. I write a paper because I am inclined to write a paper. Not because I am trying to get anything. I have no interior motives in all of this. For me, the pursuit of the knowledge itself is what the fun is. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | You know. Obviously, I have to make a living and I am interested in trying help others, so we are sitting in this little company trying make this go. I think some of my colleges wish I would take it a little more seriously more than I do. But I think in the long run, you know, good things will out. And that is where I am coming from. |
| Osama | That is very good. You said in 1964 you got your Ph.D. In what field? |
| Dr. Merrill | I went to a very interesting program at the University of Illinois called the psychology of classroom learning. And their field was in teaching machines, programmed instructions, and CBT, believe it or not. |
| Osama | Yeah. Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | I those days I was in the training research laboratory under Larry Spouger who was my major professor. Larry Spouger one of the early pioneers in CBT. Unfortunately, his name is not very well known, but he probably wrote the most insightful book on CBT or teaching machines. That was a very interesting, very innovative, very far-reaching program. The further I get away from it, the more I realize the phenomenal opportunity I had as a graduate student. |
| Osama | Hmm. |
| Dr. Merrill | To be associated with some of the best mind and some of the most far reaching ideas. In fact, I told somebody, in a lecture that I gave in our summer institute. I said in 1963 I sat in a lecture with Larry Spouger and had him explain a teaching function in a computer, which will interact with a student, and a professor function who would watch the teacher teach. The teacher started to make mistakes and the professor would suggest to the teacher ways to adapt their instruction and change the way they were doing it. And that he believed all of this could be built in a computer. I thought of bought that in 1963 not realizing that the technology was no where near what we can do now. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | And now my research interests at the moment. I am currently writing a proposal to do exactly that thirty years later. We still trying do that and I think now we have some technology that allows us to do that. So, for me, it is the pursuit of new ideas, it is the pursuit of new ways of doing things within this kind of bottom line of slight increments and knowing what we know about how people learn that interest me. |
| Osama | Very good. Well, Dr. Merrill, thank you very much for your time. |
| Dr. Merrill | You are certainly welcome. I have you on my list of the people who are interested in internship with us. Is that still true? |
| Osama | That is still true. And I have been interested in your work I think for about maybe a year and half or two years. You were one of the people who made me decide to go back to school to get some exposure to Instructional Systems Development. |
| Dr. Merrill | Great. |
| Osama | My background is in computer science. |
| Dr. Merrill | Ah. |
| Osama | Yeah. |
| Dr. Merrill | I will send you some stuff, Osama, on the internship. And, because, I think, this is still on the top of my stack. I mean, I have not sent you the stuff yet. When did I get this? Two weeks ago. Trying to catch up with all of these things. I will send you some information. And, if that meets your fancy, we would love to find a way to work with you. |
| Osama | I would appreciate that very much. And I will share this information with my classmates and I am sure it will be very very beneficial to everybody. |
| Dr. Merrill | Ok. Thank you for the call. |
| Osama | Thank you. |
| Dr. Merrill | Good luck. |
| Osama | Bye bye. |
| Dr. Merrill | Bye bye. |
Appendix B: Record Of Publication Search