Exploring teacher's instructional design practices from a systems design perspective

Curricular changes in higher vocational education have rendered teachers' instructional design activities increasingly important. Using a repertory grid technique, this paper sets out to analyse current design activities of ten teacher trainers. Their actual approach is compared with an instructional systems design (ISD) approach and related to innovative teacher roles. Teachers’ activities show an imbalance in two ID phases, that is problem analysis and evaluation. The results suggest that they attempt to translate curricular goals directly into concrete lessons and they pay relatively little attention to evaluation. In line with this finding, they underrate the two innovative teacher roles of the “diagnostician” and the “evaluator”. It is argued that imbalanced or incomplete design approaches and perceived roles may hinder innovation in education. Implications for the support of teachers’ design activities are discussed.