Why Good Instructional Design Yields Higher ROI
Instructional design makes educational content educational
Instructional Design. It’s a term that many are entirely unfamiliar with or have only a vague idea of what’s really involved in the practice. It doesn’t help that the role of the instructional designer is not always consistent, sometimes referring only to the technical authoring of learning content rather than a full learning practitioner. And other titles that focus on instructional design, like learning experience designer or customer education manager, have sprung up in recent years, adding to the sea of misunderstanding.
But make no mistake, instructional design as a process, no matter what title is practicing it, is essential to seeing high ROI from your education program. Instructional design is what makes educational content educational, separating it from other content types. Instructional design serves as the foundation for measuring success of your program. It’s the backbone of education metrics.
What exactly is Instructional Design?
Let’s back up and define the term. Instructional design, or ID, is the practice of developing learning experiences that leverages the science of how people learn. It relies on learning theories to both create and deliver content in a way that will best enable the audience to master the objectives.
“Learning theories help instructional designers understand how people retain and recall information and stay motivated and engaged in learning. There are three main families of learning theories and an emerging fourth: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism.” - Beth Oyarzun & Sheri Conklin
IDers also rely on ID models to develop and deliver learning. ADDIE is one such model that may seem familiar to anyone practicing agile methodologies. ADDIE stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. Importantly, think of ADDIE as a cycle that starts over, rather than a series of steps. This model allows IDers to move fast and flexible, launch content quickly and iterate based on responses.
Bloom for business impact
There are two ID models that need to be considered when looking at ID’s impact on positive ROI. The first is Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom’s Taxonomy is actually a framework that provides a classification of levels of thinking. Revised in 2001, the framework contains six hierarchical categories – remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create.
Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning outcomes because it explains the process of learning:
Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.
To apply a concept you must first understand it.
In order to evaluate a process, you must have analyzed it.
To create an accurate conclusion, you must have completed a thorough evaluation.” - University of Arkansas
Bloom’s connection to education’s ROI lies in its use toward crafting learning objectives. Without clear objectives, it’s impossible to measure success. Without the ability to measure success, we likewise can’t measure ROI.
Take for example a course that intends to teach learners about a new productivity tool. Course A is developed without much thought to instructional design and aims to helps the audience understand how the tool can benefit them. The course may review top features of the tool and show how they can be used day-to-day.
Now course B authors do leverage ID methods and design the course using Bloom’s Taxonomy. This course aims to help the audience compare and contrast the features to other similar tools and use the features in an example task.
Course A is only trying to get learners to understand how the tool can benefit them, but how do we measure understanding? When do we know that understanding took place, and how can we connect that understanding to business impact?
Course B uses specific verbs in learning objectives (compare/contrast, use the feature) that allow us to measure that those actions did or did not take place. It allows us to begin to connect learning and behavior. The practice of choosing the correct levels of thinking and the most appropriate verbs for the learning objectives is a major part of instructional design.
Enter Kirkpatrick for the win
The Kirkpatrick Model, commonly referenced in any conversation about learning evaluation, is the second ID model that directly contributes to ROI calculations. The model is considered the standard for measuring the effectiveness of any education program. It outlines four levels of training evaluation:
Reaction – the measurement of learners’ reaction to the learning experience
Learning – the measurement of learners’ acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence, and commitment
Behavior – the measurement of how learners have applied what they learned in the real world
Results – the analysis of what ultimately resulted from the change in behavior
You can easily see why this model is so important. Our ability to measure ROI is taken from our ability to see the results of the learning experience, and we can only calculate that if the experience was designed to be measured in the first place.
Let’s look at an example:
A business determined they would increase customer spend by nearly $1M a year if just 25% of customers used an advanced reporting feature as part of their workflow. As it turned out, most customers did not know how to best use the report. Enter a targeted learning experience! The course is designed to teach customers a) what the reporting feature does, b) how to use it in a specific scenario, c) how to choose when it’s best to use it over other reports, and d) how to create a new report from scratch.
Using Kirkpatrick’s we know that -
95% of learners reacted positively to the course via course rating
85% of learners met the course objectives, as determined via course analytics
65% of learners used the feature within 30 days of completing the course, as determined via product analytics
25% of learners spent more on the platform as result of using the feature, as seen via sales analytics
In this example, the course contributed to $1M additional revenue! We’d just subtract the costs involved in creating and delivering the course to see ROI.
While that may be simple example, it demonstrates the importance of instructional design in even being able to begin that ROI analysis. If the course just showed the feature and aimed to help an audience “understand” it, we’d be struggling to identify how or if it contributed to any change of behavior.
Good ID equals good returns
The next time you’re designing a course, consider how you are leveraging instructional design principles. If you don’t have an ID expert on your team, it’s possible you’re missing out on a significant opportunity to prove business impact.
If you need instructional design resources, Echtus can help. Contact us for a free evaluation of how education can impact your business.