Theoretical And Empirical Research On Participatory Instructional Design

The application of the traditional instructional system design in the basiceducation field is not satisfactory, and it is an indisputable fact that there is a gapbetween theory and practice. To this phenomenon, the professionals in this fieldbegin to rethink and criticize and their criticism directly pointed to the traditionalinstructional system design whose pursuit is oriented to the science andtechnology rational value. In the late of the20th century, participatory designconcept came into being along with the soft system thinking and the soft systemmethod is put forward. Participatory design emphasizes positive participation inthe system or in the process of product design is to make the system or productmeet the uses’ needs better. Because of this, participatory design has morepractical purports than traditional instructional system design. And this practicetransition will help to break through the difficult situation of the separationbetween the instructional system design theory and the instructional practice.This paper takes the instructional design in classes as a research object,discussing the necessity and inevitability of students’ participation and teachers’class instructional design, and exploring the methods of participatory instructionaldesign. According to the research methodology of “concept discussion——therealization of the practical level”, this paper is divided into two main partstheoretical study and practical research.In the part of theoretical study, first of all, this paper gives an analysis on theconnotation of participatory instructional design, and then makes a comment to its state of the art at home and abroad. Second, this paper expounds the theoreticalbasis of participatory instructional design and makes the following description:Desperately criticizing the metaphysics philosophy ideology which offersprofound philosophic conception to the participatory instructional design, andleads people to rethink the traditional instructional design; Hermeneutics, which isbased on horizon difference of teachers and students for teaching and learning,tries to explain the necessity and meaning of carrying out the participatoryinstructional design. The successful application of the participatory instructionaldesign in software system design, urban planning, architectural design, networkdesign, medical science etc.provides a train of thought for people to step off thepredicament of the traditional instructional design and also gives anenlightenment for how to apply the participatory instructional design better. Whilethe subjective education which focuses on cultivating students’ independence,autonomy, etc., reflects a fact that the participatory instructional designapplication will be a certain demand in this contemporary education.In the part of practical study, this paper sets about exploring the method ofthe participatory instructional design. Because the study on this design is still in astage of theoretical exploration at present domestic study, and it lacks ofexperience used for reference in the practice operation, therefore, this paper isbased on action orientation design, takes K.D.K oings&van Merrienboer’s studyas reference and designs action plan.This paper firstly designs the operationprocedures of the participatory design meeting of teachers and students, and thenchooses four different natures of the university courses for carrying out the actionresearch of the meeting.And then the paper analyzes the applicability of using thismeeting as a method of the participatory instructional design in the collegeclassroom teaching. All these are based on three groups’ experience andevaluation for meeting, including teachers, student delegates and the rest ofstudents. And then further to make a chi-square test for the date of the student delegates and the rest of students who have learned these four courses, and toinvestigate whether there is a statistics difference in these two groups’ experienceand evaluate in these four courses. Through this way, it can analyze the generalityof this meeting as a method for the participatory instructional design in differentcourses. Since each course has only one teacher, it is no need to do a chi-squaretest for teachers. Finally combining with the questionnaire results we’ve come toa conclusion, that is: it is suitable to take participatory design meeting ofteachers and students as a method for the participatory instructional design in thecollege classroom teaching. And this suitability will not change along with thechange of a course’s nature, namely, this meeting is versatile in different courses.