Research On Holistic Instructional Design For Complex Learning

Students’ comprehensive ability and practical ability is one of the main objectives of the school talent development. In terms of "C Language programming" course, it has important instructive significance for students to develop good style and habit of programming for practice problem solving. However, according to the instructional design of traditional "Atomism", the C language programming which was defined as complex learning task was divided into parts and believes that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. Based on this conception, students only focused on one aspect training but ignored comprehensive ability improving. For that reason, we should establish a new instructional design model for C language teaching.This thesis takes Complexity theory, holism and Chaos Theory as theoretical guides, C language teaching as an object, based on those holistic instructional design model was set up for complex teaching od "C language" according to Jeroen J.G. van Merrienboer’s holistic instructional design model (abbreviated as4C/ID). The main work is as follows:(1) The three theories and complex learning is analyzed here. This thesis also briefly introduces the basic principles of Complexity theory, holism and chaos theory of the three theories, and the application of three theories in instructional design. The definitions of complex learning and complexity identify skills were defined, Jeroen J.G van Merrienboer’s holistic instructional design model was analyzed, especially focus on interpretation of the four elements and ten steps of the model.(2) The C Language teaching problems are investigated and analyzed here.The holistic instructional design model of "C language" is designed based on4C/ID model. The problems in C language teaching process were collected by questionnaires and analysis. According to4C/ID model, the C language teaching content is divided to six task modules, i.e. variable definitions, flow control, array application, functions application, pointer operations and file operations. Each module was analyzed upon supporting information required in specific tasks implementation and provided the appropriate information for the task exercises. Finally, the "C language" holistic instructional design model was achieved.(3) Empirical study has been conducted in this thesis. In the actual teaching process, through the establishment of experimental classes and control classes, by comprehensive application of questionnaires and on class observation, experimental data was collected and analyzed by using of SPSS software of x2test and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U test. After comparing the experimental data, the final conclusion was determined:The holistic instructional design model improve attitude of learning, increase interest in learning, stimulate motivation, and strengthen self-confidence and improve ability of students in problem solving.