Jason K McDonald

I’m really happy with the way this article turned out. I’ve never been a huge fan of this field’s reductive tendencies. But over the past couple of years I’ve become more convinced that the common ways we practice educational technology, both through the technologies we use and the processes we use to develop or implement them, are highly problematic. Their problems run deep, and so I’ve also had to study some pretty difficult philosophical issues to try and get to the root of them. This paper is the first time I think I’ve articulated in a philosophically defensible way both my critique and empirical evidence for it. The themes I raise here are becoming more important to my work, and it’s unlikely I’ll go back to some of the other, softer critiques I’ve made in the past.

Abstract:

This article reports research into calculative and optionalized forms of online/blended course design in higher education. This was investigated through a critical case study, centered on two faculty members and one instructional designer at a university in the United States, and using an interpretive framework that highlighted the effects of calculation and optionalization in education. The course design practices at the designer’s disposal tended to distort the teaching ideals towards which the faculty members aimed, along with many of the teaching approaches they relied on to achieve their goals. The faculty often felt restricted in their ability to form rela- tionships with their students, while also observing that students tended to resist their attempts to engage in what they referred to as formational activities. Through these and other experiential tensions, the faculty left the project with a pervasive sense of ambiguity about course design and its contribution towards their experience as educators. The article concludes by exploring what implications these findings have for the study and practice of online/blended course design in higher education.

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Read online link

Reference:

McDonald, J. K., & Costa, I. M. (2024). A critique of calculation and optionalization applied to online/blended course design. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-024-09409-1

This was another student led project by Stephanie West, based on her Masters work at BYU. She led a team of researchers and others to design a training course for Utah teachers on how to better teach the histories and culture of indigenous tribes. As with other student projects, I largely rode her coattails on this one, but I’m pleased to have been part of it even a little.

Abstract:

In 2018, the BYU ARTS Partnership Native American Curriculum Initiative (NACI) was developed in response to teacher questions regarding the teaching of Native topics. Despite increased movements towards reconciliation,
Native groups continue to be marginalized in Westernized educational settings. Additionally, teachers lack clear guidelines regarding the respectful teaching of Native topics. Describing the challenges we, the NACI team members, faced in our six-year journey partnering with Native groups in Utah, we outline key instructional design decisions we made and identify the culturally responsive principles that guided those decisions. We also advocate for the application of culturally responsive principles and practices in education including the amplification of Native voices in the classroom.

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Reference:

West, S., Francis, H., Flox, C., Beyal, B., Soderborg, E., & McDonald, J. K. (2024). The NACI way: Connecting native groups and teachers through culturally responsive instructional design. International Journal of Designs for Learning. 15(2), 26-40. https://doi.org/10.14434/ijdl.v15i2.36081

This was a unique, and fun, paper to work on. My colleague Eamon Costello from Dublin City University (who I’ve been doing a lot of ethnographic work with this year) wrote up a sort of manifesto of various practicescapes (or speculative views of the landscapes in which practice happens) associated with learning design. He then asked various people, including myself, to respond to the issues he raised in an equally poetic and speculative spirit. My contribution was short, but allowed me to articulate some issues that had been weighing on me for some time.

Abstract:

This article addresses a serious issue that besets learning design: its over-reliance on frameworks that promise particular outcomes for individual learners that accord with pre-defined metrics. This is partly a function of the nature of learning design and devel- opment itself which is commonly seen as outcome-oriented activity that should ben- efit individual learners in specific ways. An alternative approach is adopted here which calls attention to other happenings at the heart of education, including positive emo- tions we experience that are made known through less measurable and more fleeting points of reference. Hence, we draw on sources such as poems and personal reflections in order not just to design learning but to dream it. The concept of a practicescape is invoked which serves not just to situate learning but to remind the learner that their learning experience only happens within the context of their finite lifetime. Seven prac- ticescapes are presented and reflected on by the authors as a conversation framework for interrogating ideas of learning that owe more to dreams, poems, and possibilities than aims, objectives, or outcomes. Drawing on early Buddhist philosophy, the prac- ticescapes attempt to honour particular affective states and conjure a heart-centred framework on which to hang speculative questions and provocations for learning design that are focused on cultivating and sustaining the most positive forms of human experi- ence. These practicescapes are offered as a speculative learning design climbing frame that could take us from dreams of possibility to enlivened and embodied presents.

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Reference:

Costello, E., McDonald, J. K., Macgilchrist, F., Jandrić, P., Carbonel, H., Crighton, S., Buch, A., & Peters, M. A. (2024). Speculative practicescapes of learning design and dreaming. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-024-00465-5

This was a fun chapter led by a former student, Amy Rogers. It’s a case study of instructional design practice for a textbook of ID cases. Amy did a great job scoping the case, creating artifacts, writing it up, and so on. I largely rode her coattails.

Introduction:

Cassie Standage is a recent graduate starting her first remote job as an instructional designer. She is asked to assist with a high-stakes, time-sensitive project developing a workplace violence prevention training program for 9,000 firefighters. The case begins with her receiving the workplace violence prevention assignment and concludes after she completes her informal learner analysis. Critical to this case is the fact that Cassie’s team needs to identify strategies that will help them be successful with this unique group of learners. While some of the resources/strategies that existed for the ID team are discussed in the case, students will be able to brainstorm other possible avenues for understanding an audience and building the trust and buy-in of their learners and SMEs.

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Reference:

Rogers, A., & McDonald, J. K. (2024). Cassie Standage: Developing a workplace violence prevention training. In P. A. Ertmer, K. D. Glazewski, A. A. Koehler, & J. E. Stefaniak (Eds.), The ID casebook: Case studies in instructional design(6^th ed., pp. 307-318). Routledge.

A few years ago, I developed what I called the Phronetic Framework for Using LDT Theory. It was published in a book of theories for guiding the future of the field. I’m happy with the chapter and the underlying framework, but have always thought it was a little advanced. So, I simplified the chapter for my Design for Learning textbook, and hopefully now its more useful to students or others trying to think through issues of theory in the field.

Chapter Introduction:

Practitioners in the field of learning and instructional design are commonly told that “theories are the foundation for designing instructional solutions to achieve desired learning outcomes” (Oyarzun & Conklin, 2021). But if this is true, why do designers often report that theory is “too abstract and inapplicable” to address common problems of practice (Yanchar et al., 2010, p. 50)? Or, alternatively, that theories are so “rigid” (p. 51) and prescriptive that they lead to one-size-fits-all solutions that do not fit the circumstances in which designers are working? 

In my studies, I have come to believe that part of the problem is that designers think about theory the wrong way. They often assume it is like a tool (a power drill, for instance, or a circular saw). In this view, theory has some kind of capacity built into it that is independent of the person using it. Anyone can pick it up and produce results (if they have received the proper training, of course). But this perspective misunderstands something fundamental about human-centered work like learning and instructional design. Theories do not solve problems. People do. This does not mean theory is useless. It just means it plays a different role in designers’ work than being a tool that they apply. So, if designers want theory to be applicable and usable they need to first put it into its proper place—a place that recognizes that they—the designers—are most central to the work of improving education, and not a set of abstract, theoretical ideas that are presumed to have the power to solve problems. From this perspective, theory becomes one of many supports for practice, but not the most important nor the most decisive. 

My purpose in this chapter is to explain these issues. First, I review some of the challenges with the field’s traditional views of theory. Next, I offer a different view of theory that conceptualizes it as a support that helps designers strengthen their own capacities for better judgement. Finally, I briefly describe different kinds of theory that apply to learning and instructional design practice, and how they support designers’ judgement in differing ways.

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At the book website

Reference:

McDonald, J. K. (2024). Using theory as a learning and instructional design professional. In J. K. McDonald, & R. E. West (Eds.), Design for learning: Principles, processes, and praxis. EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/id/future_views_of_theory_in_learning_and_instructional_design

This is the third article coming out of my ethnography project that studied online course design. It follows up from my study of everydayness, and my study of autonomy and collaboration in course design. What’s unique about this paper is we discovered how many different ways that the concept of trust is used by course designers. Sometimes, they’re telling people to back off and trust them–let them do their jobs. Sometimes, they’re referring to how much they trust others, in a sense recognizing they can’t do the job alone so need the help of qualified collaborators. There are other meanings of trust in course design, too (read the paper!). Among other findings, I think this paper complicates the way lots of other researchers talk about trust. They discuss it as if it were a self-evident good, and never really acknowledge that some of the ways that designers talk about trust are in tension with each other (I trust you vs. back off and just trust me). I wish we acknowledged that more in our discourse.

Abstract:

This study reports research on instructional designers’ experiences of trust in the context of online course design in a university setting. Through semi-structured interviews with designers, we explored how trust showed up as a meaningful phenomenon in their experience and how they went about increasing trust in their relationships with faculty members. Our analysis of interviews suggested two major themes related to how trust fit into designers’ working experiences. First, designers experienced at least three different forms of trust: (1) self-trust; (2) trust in faculty; and (3) organizational trust. Second, designers pursued at least two strategies to nurture trust in design work: (1) cultivating trusting relationships; and (2) building trust through buy-in. Given the various ways in which trust was experienced, and the complicated interconnec- tions between forms of trust reported by participants, we conclude by discussing the significance of trust as a key aspect of instructional design practice.

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At the journal website

Reference:

McDonald, J. K., & Yanchar, S. C. (2024). Understanding trust in online course design. TechTrends. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-024-00940-7

I’ve heard my dissertation chair, Andy Gibbons, talk about design layers for the entire time I’ve known him–over 20 years now. So it felt like a circle completing to write this chapter with him on design layers for an introductory textbook on current and historical trends in the field. We tried to express the layers idea simply and concretely, while also making a new contribution to the discussion around why layers is a valuable concept for understanding design. I think we accomplished both goals.

Abstract:

This chapter has two purposes. First, we contrast two approaches to instructional design—the traditional Instructional Systems Design (ISD) process and an alternative view known as Functional Design Layering (FDL). In our review, we describe the background of each approach, the problem(s) each approach attempts to solve, and the types of decisions each approach prepares instructional designers to make. Second, we show how these different approaches play complementary roles in the practice of instructional design. When considered together, they offer a more robust conception of how instructional designs can be created. Essentially, ISD focuses on design process at the expense of internal design structure, whereas FLD focuses on internal design structure and proposes a naturalistic view of design decision order that is more closely aligned with actual designer practice. Considered together, these contrasting approaches become mutually strengthening, providing the designer with a wider range of design questions and design process options.

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Reference:

Gibbons, A. S., & McDonald, J. K. (2023). ISD and functional design layering. In R. E. West, & H. Leary (Eds.), Foundations of learning and instructional design technology: Historical roots & current trends (2^nd ed.). EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/foundations_of_learn/24_design_layers

I was invited to contribute this article to a special issue on learning experience design by the journal’s guest editors. I was reluctant at first because I didn’t see a strong connection between what I’m currently studying and the direction the issue was taking. But I ended up talking to a couple of the guest editors at a conference near the end of 2022, and because I’m a sucker they both talked me into it. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw how I could take the chance to write about issues I was more interested in, in particular the dispositions or character associated with designing in educational settings. My proposal was super complicated and went way over my head, let alone the heads of the editors. So one of them had to kindly sit me down and encourage me to speak better to their audience. At that point I brought in a student to help me, and in the end I think we got something meaningful and rigorous, and still (relatively) simple as well.

Abstract:

In this paper we consider how learning experience design (LXD) improves designers’ capacities to influence learning. We do this by exploring what LXD offers the design of learning environments that help develop learners’ expertise. We discuss how LXD (a) attunes designers to different learning affordances than are emphasized in traditional ID; (b) challenges the universal applicability of common ID techniques; and (c) expands designers’ views of the outcomes for which they can design. These insights suggest that LXD is useful because it refocuses and reframes designers’ work around flexible design approaches that are often deemphasized in traditional ID.

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Reference:

McDonald, J. K., & Westerberg, T. J. (2023). Learning experience design as an orienting guide for practice: Insights from designing for expertise. Journal of Applied Instructional Design. 12(3), 201-214. https://doi.org/10.59668/515.12898

This is an interesting article out of the PCS research team. In it we attempt to come up with a working definition of the This is Not a Game construct we use, along with researchers in alternative reality gaming. This is Not a Game is the suspension of disbelief in the fictional world we create, where students give themselves over to the experience. It’s the kind of thing that lots of people kinda get, but that we wanted to think about more precisely and carefully. This article reports our attempt to do so through a survey validation methodology. Not my usual kind of research, but an interesting project to be part of all the same.

Abstract:

Participatory narratives are compelling, at least partly because of their ability to help players sus- pend disbelief in the fictional world in which they engage. Game makers have used the phrase “This is Not a Game” (TINAG) to capture the willingness of players to buy into such narratives in ways that promote productive roleplaying and authentic engagement. Although TINAG has per- meated the academic and popular literature on gaming and immersive narratives for decades, there has not been a scientific grounding for the term that provides researchers support for a more rigorous study of the topic. This article makes two primary contributions. First, it provides a definition of the Perception of TINAG based on a systematic literature review of 50 articles that define or describe critical characteristics of TINAG: The Perception of TINAG is a player’s acceptance that they are embedded in and able to influence a fictional story woven into the real world. Second, the paper develops and validates a survey instrument that researchers can use to measure the Perception of TINAG and its three unique components: (1) the player accepts that they are embedded in a fictional story, (2) the player believes their actions influence the narrative, and (3) the player perceives that the story is woven into the real world. We evaluated the instrument using exploratory factor analysis using expert reviewers and game players. We include a table of the articles describing TINAG and our final scale to facilitate future research.

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Reference:

Giboney, J. S., Bonsignore, E. M., McDonald, J. K., Hansen, D. L., Mata, L, & Balzotti, J. (2023). Perception of “This is not a game”: Definition and measurement. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2221598

This paper comes out of the same ethnographic project on instructional design work in higher education out of which I’ve published previously. Here, my colleague Steve Yanchar and I analyzed the formal interviews carried out with instructional designers throughout the project. We focused on values they thought were important during design work, in particular autonomy and collaboration. But what’s unique about this article–and is the major contribution I think it offers–is they also talked about how autonomy and collaboration aren’t always compatible. And so holding to both of them can create some binds they have to navigate. I think these kind of binds are important to acknowledge and understand. I’m happy we were able to do that, even a little bit, here.

Abstract:

In this qualitative study we investigated the experiences of instructional designers as they sought to build quality into online courses. Through semi-structured inter- views, we explored what enabled and hindered their pursuit of quality, how they experienced their efforts in this regard, what mattered to them, and complexities that accompanied this pursuit. Our analysis of participant experiences suggested four themes: (1) connections between quality and designers’ ability to act autonomously; (2) connections between quality and collaborative, team-based relationships; (3) ambivalence due to tensions between autonomy and collaboration; and (4) ways of coping with limits on autonomy and collaboration. We conclude our report with implications for instructional design practice, suggesting that the pursuit of quality often requires creative work arounds and is informed by affective judgements that lie beyond the purview of traditional instructional design processes.

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At the journal website

Reference:

McDonald, J. K., & Yanchar, S. C. (2023). Instructional designer perspectives on the pursuit of quality in online course design. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-023-09388-9