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Moral Dimensions of ID
Russell T. Osguthorpe, Richard Osguthorpe, W. James Jacob, and Randy Davies
Editor’s Note: The following was previously published in Educational Technology.
Osguthorpe, R. T., Osguthorpe, R. D., Jacob, W. J., & Davies, R. (2003). The Moral Dimensions of Instructional Design. Educational Technology, 43(2), 19–23.
While visiting a graduate student, who was completing her internship in a training division of a large corporation, I (the senior author) was escorted by her supervisor into their conference room. Pointing to immense charts covering each of the four walls, she explained, “This is our instructional design model. We’re pretty proud of it.” As I examined the charts, I was astonished at the level of detail. Each of the major components in the ADDIE model included layer after layer of sub-steps. Trying not to judge the model too quickly, I asked, “So, what do you see as the major benefit of this model over a more simplified one?”
“Oh,” she responded, “following this model helps us accomplish our overall goal of zero defects.”
Somewhat puzzled, I asked, “Zero defects? You mean the model helps you find problems in your company’s products.”
“No, not in the products,” she responded, “in the people.”
A little stunned, I asked, “And how do you decide that a person is defective?”
Without hesitating, she explained, “Any time a trainee answers a test item incorrectly, that’s considered a defect.”
Anyone who has worked extensively with instructional design models should not be surprised at such an extreme application of their principles. The models are grounded on what Jackson (1986) has called the “mimetic” tradition, which “gives a central place to the transmission of factual and procedural knowledge from one person to another, through an essentially imitative process” (p. 117). Mimetic instruction usually includes five steps that are hauntingly similar to the ADDIE model: (1) test, (2) present, (3) perform/evaluate, (4) reward correct performance/remediate incorrect performance, and (5) advance to the next unit.
But there is another way to frame education: Jackson (1986) calls it the “transformative” tradition. Rather than adding knowledge to a student’s brain—the goal of mimetic instruction—transformative teaching attempts to change the student in a more fundamental way (see Cranton, 1994). In this tradition, students change the way they see themselves in relation to others and to the world around them. In transformative education a teacher cares for students in their wholeness. The teacher is concerned not only with improvements in test performance, but with improvements in character.
Teaching and teacher education have long considered their disciplines to be moral in nature. Fenstermacher (1990) asserts that moral dimensions are always present when one person is trying to teach another:
What makes teaching a moral endeavor is that it is, quite centrally, human action undertaken in regard to other human beings. Thus, matte