TH E AD D I E M E THO D OLO G Y

A WHITE PAPER EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE METHODOLOGY AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE IT

BY DANIEL CASTILLO 2010 DANIEL CASTILLO

Table of Contents
Preface ........................................................................................ 3 Introducing ADDIE ................................................................... 4 Stage I: Analysis ......................................................................... 6

Analysis Example ..................................................................................................... 7 Analysis Example Solution...................................................................................... 8 Design Example .....................................................................................................12 Development Example ..........................................................................................14 Implementation Example ......................................................................................16 Evaluation Example ...............................................................................................18

Stage II: Design .........................................................................10 Stage III: Development .............................................................13 Stage IV: Implementation .........................................................15 Stage V: Evaluation ...................................................................17

ADDIE: Two Missing Pieces ................................................... 20 Including Research in the ADDIE Methodology .....................21

Before Analysis .......................................................................................................21 Before Design .........................................................................................................22 A Modified Methodology ......................................................................................22

Including Validation in the ADDIE Methodology .................. 23

PREFACE
This paper contains all the blog entries that I posted to my blog, http://allthingstraining.net, concerning the famous ADDIE methodology for training. I think that putting all the content together in this white paper format will make the information easier to follow, especially for people who want to start from the beginning and then work their way toward the end of the content. I dont consider myself the final authority for ADDIE, just someone who has had experience using the methodology in the real world. Its my hope that my posts and this paper can be of some benefit to other training developers.

INTRODUCING ADDIE
ADDIE is the acronym describing the most famous methodology in curriculum design: A Analysis D Design D Development I Implementation E Evaluation Many modern instructional design processes are either ADDIE-based or derived from the ADDIE process. I would like to make my own analysis of the ADDIE methodology here, explaining it in non-technical terms and adding some insight as to how I would apply it. I look at ADDIE as a formal description of a common-sense process that we use, without realizing it, to do many things. Normally, when we are about to do something that is complicated, we do two basic steps: 1. Plan. 2. Do the plan. Example: I want to travel to Rome. 1. I plan the trip, researching on all the hotels, the sites to see, places where I can lodge, etc. 2. I do the plan, performing everything that I set out to do in the planning stage. However, some things we dont just do. Some things we build, like a car or a house. If we want to create a new car or a new house from scratch, we need to do some things before sitting down and drafting the blueprints. We have to analyze first, investigate, research. Why do we want to build a new car for? What need would this car fill that other cars dont? Why am I drafting the plans for the house instead of buying the plans already completed? Or maybe there already are plans out there that would meet my needs, and making customized plans would be wasting more time and money? So normally, when we build something, we perform some kind of analysis (ADDIE Step 1). Then we make the plan (ADDIE Step 2 Design). Then we carry out the plan (ADDIE Step 3 Development). 4

If were creating a new kind of car to sell, then its not enough just to build thousands of cars, is it? We have to do something with thembring them to market. Thats equivalent to ADDIE Step 4 Implementation. Finally, when all is said and done, we need to step back and see if we actually accomplished what we had hoped. This is ADDIE Step 5 Evaluation. Did the cars come out according to plan? Did they sell? Was the house constructed well? Did it meet whatever standards were previously established? If we find we did a great job, then we remember how we did things so that we can successfully repeat them for future projects. If we did poorly, then we see what went wrong and correct those mistakes in the future. Building a training course is much like building a car or a house. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Analysis: We research the current needs that the training is trying to meet. Design: We plan out the training. Development: We actually start writing and producing the training. Implementation: We deliver the training to the learners. Evaluation: We evaluate how weve done to see if the final result meets the needs that were established in the Analysis phase.

That is ADDIE in a nutshell. Many training developers may have been following this model without having learned it formally. Its common sense to analyze first, then plan, develop, implement and evaluate. As we look at each ADDIE step in more detail, well see that there are some important implications to this seemingly simple methodology. Theres more to it than what meets the eye at this point. Knowing ADDIE more deeply is an asset to every instructional designer, and thats exactly what well do in the coming sections.

STAGE I: ANALYSIS
This is where you analyzewhat? Everything! Wow, where do we start? We begin by asking some basic questions. Question #1: What is going on? How did this idea to do a training class come about? Did you perform the research yourself and then you noticed what could be a training need? Or did others bring the idea to you or to your department? If so, who brought the proposal to you? What needs did they say that they wanted addressed? Question #2: What are the real needs and solutions? Research what the true circumstances are surrounding the training proposal and perceived needs. What do you consider to be the real needs that exist? What is the best way to meet those needs? Are there other things besides training that need to be implemented before those needs can be met? Are there better ways to meet those needs besides training? What would be the best solution or combination of solution for meeting those needs? Do the resources exist to implement the necessary solutions? Is there the will to implement these solutions by all those who will need to be involved? Takeaway: In each step of the ADDIE process, there should be at least one tangible, final product that can be evaluated and approved (or rejected) by the parties involved. For the Analysis phase, there should be one or more documents specifying the situation, the perceived needs and the recommended solutions. Some designers prefer to create more than one document for this phasefirst, the needs analysis document, and then the solutions document.

ANALYSIS EXAMPLE
Meet Steve Murphy. Hes an instructional designer for ACME Education, the training department for ACME Software. His manager has brought him a request from Support Project Manager Bill Brown. The ACME Technical Support department is completely changing their case management system; theyre throwing out the old version that was developed in-house and opting to buy a software package instead. Therefore, the entire Support team needs to be trained on the new software as soon as possible. So Steve puts on his ADDIE cap and gets to work on the first step, Analysis. He tries to get some of the important questions answered. In his research, he discovers the following: The new software offers no real benefits to its users over the older software. The interface is more modern, and many of its elements are different, but it actually offers slightly fewer features than the in-house version. The new software was purchased because it would be a lot cheaper to buy this software than to maintain a team of developers to continue developing and maintaining the old software. (The in-house developers will get laid off, as is the trend these days.) Nobody in Support knows anything about the new software, so they will all have to get trained on it. The company selling the new software also offers their own training, but they only offer an instructor-led version that would cost lots of $$$ to implement because of the number of ACME support personnel and their locations all over the world. Project Manager Bill Brown wants e-learning, because he thinks thats the only way that everybody can get trained on the material quickly and efficiently enough. As soon as possible means four months: thats when the contract with the new software company will take effect. The new application is not complex at all. Learning the software itself should take no more than one or two hours. However, there are new processes that will need to be taught as well, and the Support Department is still trying to iron all of those out. They hope to have most, but not all, of the processes in place within the next month. The software is a very important application, one of the main apps that Support uses to handle its customers Whew, Steve thinks. This is a biggie. What do you think Steves conclusions will be at this stage? What would yours be?

ANALSIS EXAMPLE: SOLUTION

As he reaches the conclusions of his analysis for the proposed projects, Steven notes some definite warning signs: There will probably be some resistance on the part of the learners to the new training. Since the new software doesnt offer any tangible advantages over the old one, theyll look at the training as just one more complicated task placed on their already overloaded plates. You can just hear somebody saying, The company decides to change the application, and now weve got to get all this training on the new one. Bleh! The old app was fine! Some of the processes for the new software will not be in place by the time training development needs to start. This means that important learning content will not exist until the later stages of course development, which is (under usual circumstances) way too late for content to be designed into a course and then developed. These are two definite Danger signals that need to be addressed well, or else the whole project will sink faster than the Titanic. Other observations that Steve makes are: Traditional instructor-led training has already been disqualified as an option. Traditional e-learning of the entire content is not ideal in this case, because some of the content will not be ready at first and then will probably have to be modified several times. Making significant content changes in e-learning that is well advanced in development can result in much higher expenses of time and money. Traditional self-study (like providing printed materials and instructions) is not ideal either because the learners are not motivated enough to study on their own. In fact, they havent even taken the course and many of them have already started to hate it (not the course really, but the fact that they have to get training for a software program that is being forced upon them). In his Analysis document, Steve recommends the following: The content of the learning will be delivered in printed self-study materials that will be distributed to all learners around the globe. (The PDFs will be sent to each location, which will then print them out locally for the learners.) This will allow the course content to be modified easily and quickly as the Support team finishes determining the processes for the new software. An organization of team leads, selected by management, will facilitate the learning by meeting with the learners in each location, first as a group and then individually. o The group sessions will allow learners to ask questions and also to vent their frustrations about learning the new software, and the team leads will need to express both sympathy and encouragement. o The team leads will need to get their own training and preparation, which they will receive as part of the course development. The developer will 8

create materials specifically for them and then hold a train-the-trainer session through a Web conference. Even though the leads wont be teaching the material, they will need to know it in order to provide any assistance to the learners. o As the learners take the course, the team leads will provide continual encouragement and feedback. In this way, the motivation gap can be addressed. Online quizzes and tests will be made availablequizzes, to help learners practice and assimilate the material, and tests, to verify and record that the learners actually have learned enough about the content in order to perform their duties well. If time permits, online practice simulations will also be provided to learners. (Steve puts this in the If Time Permits category, because he knows things will be tight and complicated for developing this course, and that there just might not be enough time. But simulations would be quite helpful and he really wants to try to make the best possible course.) What do you think of Steves solution? Do you agree? Would you have recommended differently? Next, well talk about the next phase of the ADDIE methodologyDesign, and then well observe Steve as he moves his development into this phase.

STAGE II: DESIGN

This is when you create the design, or the blueprint, of the course. Well continue to use the construction metaphor. If building a course is like building a house, then the design of the course is like a set of architectural plans for a house. When you build a house, you normally have the floor plan that shows on paper exactly where all the rooms, windows, and doors are going to be located, as well as the specific measurements of all those details. But you also have other plans as well: the electrical plan, the foundation plan, the plumbing plan, and others, each illustrating in detail exactly how that aspect of the house is designed. Together, they all form one unified set of architectural plans for that house. The plans are detailed to the extent that the architect can pass those plans along to the construction engineers and be pretty sure that what he had in his head will be the final result, as long as the engineers follow the plans exactly. Thats just what the course design is like. Its usually one plan instead of a set of plans, but it details everything that the course should contain and the way all the content should be arranged. In the same way as an architect, a design should be detailed enough for the instructional designer to be able to pass it along to someone else and to be pretty certain that how the designer envisioned the course will be the way it is built. Takeaway: The course design is presented in a document thats often called the Design Document. Once the instructional designer finishes this document, it is circulated among the other parties involved (such as the project managers, the subject matter experts and development managers) in search of approval. When the document gets everybodys approval, the designer goes on to the next step and actually starts developing the course. What should the Design Document contain? That has always been a matter of some debate in the educational world, but there is a general consensus that it should include at least these things: Objectives A list of the things that the learner should be able to do after going through the training. Topics A list of all the topics to be included, in the order in which they will be presented Assessment and Simulation Outlines The general outlines of any quizzes, tests or simulations that will be part of the course. Usually, the Design Document contains more than the above, but what these are can vary greatly according to the company, the designers and the project involved. The more that you detail the content within the Design Document, the better. It allows you to focus on concept conceptualization in the appropriate stage: Design. Once we 10

move on to Development, the focus is more on the implementation and expression of the content, and not the content itself. However, this doesnt necessarily mean that more detail in general is good in the Design Document. You can actually bog down the document with so much formatting, bureaucratic process, and red tape that the designers can feel that they are spending more time working on the Design Document than on the design itself. Ive seen some Design Documents that seem like a blueprint of torture. For example, one Design Document required us to enter the date and our initials every time we modified the document, and each modification required individual approval of all the parties involved. This same document was formatted in Microsoft Word in such a way that we wrestled with the formatting with every project. The Design Document should be simple to manipulate, but the course content within the Document should be as specific as possible.

11

DESIGN: EXAMPLE
Previously, ACME instructional designer Steve Murphy finished the Analysis phase with his initial recommendations approved. The course would consist of the following: A self-study learning guide to be printed out locally Online modules for practice and assessments Face-to-face sessions with local facilitators to motivate and guide learners Now that Steve enters the Design phase, he begins to research the nitty-gritty of the application that will be the focus of the training. As part of the Analysis phase, hes already performed some initial research about what the application consists of, and what the learners need to know about it. Now he researches all the details, interviewing subject matter experts, reviewing existing documentation and knowledge bases, and experimenting with the application himself. First, he finds out the details of what the learners need to know, and then he shapes this information into a set of learning objectives for the course. These objectives describe exactly what the course intends to accomplish with the learners. Second, he researches the complete details of the information required to complete the learning objects. He then begins to sculpt the information into outlines, complete with topics, sub-topics and learning points. Each element of the trainingthe self-study guide, the online modules, and even the face-to-face sessionscontains its own outline. Steve finally inserts the objectives and all the outlines into the Design Document that his company uses for this process, fitting the information into the documents formatting. After looking over the Design Document numerous times and feeling happy about it, he forwards it to the parties involved for validation. The project manager and subject matter experts review it, make a few suggestions and corrections, and send the document back to Steve. Steve incorporates the modifications and resends it to the parties involved to make sure everyone is happy with the result. He receives word that they are satisfied. Now hes ready for the next stage in the ADDIE methodology: Development.

12

STAGE III: DEVELOPMENT

After Analysis and Design comes Development. The project has been analyzed, it has been planned out, and now it is put into effect. Using the plan established in the Design Document, the developer now begins to build the housethe actual training content. The Design Document, or whatever format that the design plan is in, becomes the map that the developer now follows carefully. In the Development stage, the content is developed into its final form and put into the format that the learner will experience. If the content will go into printed student guides, then the developer creates the content in the software application that will produce the final product for print. If the content will be taught in an instructor-led course, then the developer may create an instructors guide, a student guide and Microsoft PowerPoint slides for the instructor to display in the class. If the content is e-learning, then the developer inserts the content into the software application that will produce the e-learning, adding any graphics, audio, animations or videos that would enhance the learner experience without distracting from the content. The amount of work that goes into this phase depends on the amount of work that was put into the previous phases. The more work that goes into planning, the less that needs to go into the Development phase.

13

DEVELOPMENT: EXAMPLE
Steve is back on the job. He took a week off to take his family skiing in Aspen, Colorado, and now he has returned to work. Naturally, he remembers absolutely nothing of what he had been working on. When he first sits at his desk, he picks up the papers lying around, logs onto his computer and seesyes, thats what he was working on: CaseMage, the third party case management system that his company had acquired and that he had designed training for. He has no problem getting back into the swing of things. Why? Because he had planned everything out carefully in the Design Document, detailing all the topics, all the learning items, all in the order that they would be presented in the training. He now begins to produce the training material, which in this particular case consists of: A self-study learning guide, which contains the learning content Online quizzes and tests A Facilitators Guide for helping team leads facilitate group sessions with local learners He begins work on the self-study guide first, that being the format through which all the learning content will be delivered. He creates the content in Adobe Framemaker, adding the text while collecting and then importing the graphics that the final guide will contain. The task of putting the course in a self-study guide takes him two weeks, after which he works on a short Facilitators Guide and finally on the online assessment. Throughout the entire development phase, Steve is continually sending his content to the subject matter experts (SMEs) and getting their approval, just to make sure hes on the right track. Finally, hes finished developing the entire content. He sends his SMEs the final piece that has yet to be looked over, and then he sends them and the project managers the entire, finished course. Everyone has a look over it and gives it their approval. The company has funded this project generously, allowing Steve to test his course with a small group of sample learners. He sends out his course to a carefully selected small group, has one team lead give them the facilitation meeting, and tests his content. Based on the results, he tweaks his course and makes a few modifications. Now, the CaseMage training course is ready for the next stage: Implementation.

14

STAGE IV: IMPLEMENTATION

The fourth step in the ADDIE Methodology, the I, is Implementation. Another word for this step could be Delivery. This is when the course finally gets implemented, or delivered to the students. The learners take the course in whatever format(s) the training is delivered instructor-led, elearning, self-study, or any other method or combination of methods. If the course is instructor-led, Implementation involves the instructor(s) teaching the classes to their students either in physical classrooms or over the Web. If the course consists entirely of e-learning, Implementation means getting all the students to take the course. From the students point of view, the course has been finished, and the learners are experiencing the finished product. However, the ADDIE process for the course has not yet been completed. The Implementation stage is done when all the targeted learners have finished taking the training. No modifications to the course content should take place in the Implementation stage unless there is a show-stopper, an extremely major error or omission that all parties agree must be corrected. Otherwise, Implementation stage should be allowed to finish for the course, even if errors are found after this stage has begun. Courses, like people, arent always 100% perfect, so errors/omissions may occur. When these are detected, they should be logged in an organized fashion. When the course is updated at some future date, this log can be accessed and then the errors/omissions can be corrected. After the Implementation stage, there is one final phase: Evaluation.

15

IMPLEMENTATION: EXAMPLE
The moment has arrived! At least for Steve and his training project, it has. The course, CaseMage Fundamentals, finally begins to get implemented after about 3 months of Analysis, Design and Development (the ADD in ADDIE). Despite his years of experience, Steve still gets nervous and excited every time his project enters the Implementation stage. Will everything work out? Will the students like the course? Will they learn? Will the company reap the benefits that it is expecting? Will the facilitators have all the resources they need? Will the learning management system (the LMS) deliver the online assessments and self-study guides without any problems? All these questions invariably have positive answers, due to the significant work that he has put into the planning and development stages of the course. Nevertheless, because there are many people (facilitators and students), one big and complicated learning management system, and many motivational factors and possible distractions, there is always the possibility of something coming up during the Implementation. Things start to happen quickly: 1. The facilitators meet with their groups over the course of several weeks, and the feedback is positive: all well so far. 2. The LMS shows that all the required students are downloading the self-study guide. 3. The learners take the online assessments a little later. Has everything worked? Did the course accomplish its objectives? Is Steves job still secure? Those are the questions that are answered in the next and final phase of ADDIE: Evaluation.

16

STAGE V: EVALUATION
Now we reach the final stage of the ADDIE process, the E in ADDIE: Evaluation. The training has been analyzed, designed, developed and implemented. The students have undergone the learning, in whatever form it was delivered. Evaluation is the ADDIE stage in which the results of the learning are studied. Through this evaluation, we try to determine how successful the training was in both achieving the objectives stated within the training and in fulfilling the expectations of all the parties involved. There are different levels of evaluation that we can measure. Through surveys provided right after the training, we can determine the learners immediate reaction to the training experience. Through quizzes, we can see how much information the learner has retained. There are different evaluation methods: Weve already mentioned two: surveys and quizzes. We can also analyze the learner behavior once on the job to determine whether the training had the desired impact in the work environment. We can study the production statistics or revenue to quantify the results that the training may have had on the business itself, measuring the Before and After of a given situation that the training directly applies to. After implementation, we can directly interview the trainers, a sample of the students, the managers, the subject matter experts and others to get their point of view on the success of the course. If the course was deployed through a learning management system, then the LMS statistics can be reviewed to see how many students took the course and how well they did in any course quizzes and assessments. An organization needs to know whether its training is working, and the Evaluation stage is the time when the company makes this determination.

17

EVALUATION: EXAMPLE
Steve Murphy performed the analysis (A in ADDIE) for the proposed training on the CaseMage case management software, he designed the training (D), he developed the course materials (the secondD), and the training has been implemented and delivered to all the targeted learners (I). But as weve mentioned before, hes still not finished with the CaseMage project. He now performs the final stage, the Evaluation (E) of the training results. He begins to collect information from different sources: The learning management system (LMS) administered the electronic equivalent of a smiley sheet, a customer satisfaction survey, to measure how satisfied the students felt with the training right after finishing the course. The system also calculates the averages from all the questions, which had been given on a scale of 1 (Very Unsatisfied) to 5 (Very Satisfied). o Steve reviews the results after all the students take the course. The total average is 4.1. Not bad, he thinks. Whew, I got through that one, he says. His company adds up all the averages from all his courses over the year, and that result gets included as a major factor in his annual review. Less than a 4, no raise. Less than a 3, he had better start looking for the cardboard boxes to pack his things. The LMS also administered a series of assessments throughout the course. Steve reviews the assessment results to see if the students understood the material and learned it. These assessments only test learning during and right after training; they dont determine if the students actually retain the learning on the job. Nevertheless, theyre an indication of how well the students assimilated the training content. o Steve looks over the assessment results. Anything over 80% is positive for his company. Hes relieved to see that the average is 83%. Steve also calls the facilitators, the program managers and even some of the students to get some anecdotal evidence of the training results. He gathers this information and summarizes it, careful to note both the positives and the negatives accurately. o Steve hears positive reviews from all the people hes asked. The students say that they not only learned what they felt that they needed, but that it was an enjoyable experience as well. The facilitators and managers confirm this. There are a few students who said that the material seemed too easy at times. All in all, it sounds good, thinks Steve. Steve now organizes all the evaluation information and inserts it into an Evaluation Report. Based on the information, he writes his own conclusion in the report: the training was successful, and the facilitator/e-learning combination is a model that can be used again with positive results. Addressing the negative, that the training was sometimes too easy, Steve explains that this is a natural result of making the material understandable 18

enough for all the students, some of whom came from a non-technical background and who therefore needed things to be made simple. Steve submits the finished Evaluation Report to his manager and the program managers who had requested the course. They approve and agree, congratulating him. Whew! Steve says to himself when its all over. He accomplished his goal, he still has his job. Time to go on to the next project on his managers training request list. And then it starts all over again, with the A (Analysis) in ADDIE. THE END (of this example)!

19

ADDIE: TWO MISSING PIECES

If we were to look at the ADDIE process literally, restricting ourselves to just AnalysisDesign-Development-Implementation-Evaluation, we would be overlooking two extremely vital parts of the processResearch and Validation. In Research, the developer investigates and explores for information; some of this information is gathered to help make choices about the training (in the Analysis phase), other information is used for the actual content (Design and Development) phases. In Validation, the developer submits the ideas, choices or proposed content to the parties involved, such as program managers and subject matter experts. These people then validate the material by providing feedback, either approving the content or suggesting changes. The developer then uses this feedback to make the final decisions and the complete content. Research and Validation dont exist as separate stages in the ADDIE methodology. Research periods can occur several times in the process, and validation occurs throughout. Yet these two activities are so important that any training development methodology needs to focus on them as well. They are the two missing pieces in the ADDIE process, and they need to be included in order to follow more closely what occurs in real life.

20

INCLUDING RESEARCH IN THE ADDIE METHODOLOGY

Research occurs in training development, whether or not it is specified in the ADDIE methodology. Research is done in the Analysis phase, to help make decisions on how to shape the course, and in the Design phase, to bring together the information that will be delivered to the students. In the traditional ADDIE methodology, Research occurs within the ADDIE phases. But its my opinion that Research is an activity separate from Analysis and Design, and that Research is its own phase. Research can certainly take as long as any of the other phases, depending on the complexity of training, the availability of the information, and the amount of data to sift through. If the developer has to search deep and wide for information as if going on a treasure hunt, then Research is going to take a while. The same holds true if there is a tremendous amount of information to process, or if the information is highly complicated. So if we were going to include Research as its own stage, where would we put it in the ADDIE process?

BEFORE ANALYSIS (THE A IN ADDIE)

I would definitely include it as the first step in the methodology. Before you analyze anything in the Analysis phase, you need to have something to Analyze. More than likely, youre going to ask a few questions to help you make choices about the training; you wont know all the answers without talking first to the subject matter experts or the people requesting the training. Some of these questions that the developer may ask the people requesting the course are: Why do you feel that the training is necessary? Who specifically do you think needs the training? What business needs to you hope that the training will resolve? What are the perceived benefits to the learner and to the business? Once this research is performed and the resulting information is analyzed, the designer makes certain recommendations about the training, includes those recommendations in a report and then submits it to the parties involved for recommendation. After the developer gets everyones approval, does the Design of the course immediately commence? According to the ADDIE methodology, it would. But unless the developer 21

has all the content for the course in his/her own head, theres no actual content to design. You need to spend considerable time researching the course content to have the material that your course is supposed to teach. Therefore, in my opinion, you need to add one more major research phase into the ADDIE process.

BEFORE DESIGN (THE FIRST D IN ADDIE)

After Analysis, a major research effort needs to take place in obtaining all the information the course will consist of. It usually begins in the broadest sense, by first researching what are the topics that should be taught and the objectives that should be achieved by the course. Some may start to design the course once they get enough information to name the objectives and the topics. I prefer to go further and design the course completely at this stage, down to the most granular level possible. In Design, I want to concentrate on the content information itself; in Development, I want to focus on putting the content into its delivery formats (self-study guides, instructor guides, e-learning, etc.). In order to plan out the content in great detail during the Design phase, I need to do my main content research before the Design.

A MODIFIED METHODOLOGY
In order to reflect more accurately what happens during course development, thereby including Research in the important role that it has, then I think we need to add Research before Analysis and before Design. Modifying the ADDIE acronym, the methodology would now look like this: RARDDIEResearch, Analysis, Research, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation RARDDIE isnt as catchy as ADDIE, but I think it gives a better idea of the training development process.

22

INCLUDING VALIDATION IN THE ADDIE METHODOLOGY

When a request comes in for a course, theres almost always somebody else involved who is outside the training department. It may be a professor in a school or college, and youve been asked to work alongside this teacher to create an online, accredited course. It may be a program manager who has led the decision to implement a new process or purchase a new technology, and you have been asked to create a course that will train employees on that process or technology. It may be the managers who see knowledge or ability gaps in their employees, and they ask you to create training to fill those gaps. Whoever it is, there is usually at least one person outside the training team who has the power to approve or reject any training efforts. Any course development involves getting the training content reviewed by these people, whether there is a formal methodology being followed or not. And its not just once or twice that the training content needs to get validated either. The content should be submitted numerous times during the course development, in order to make sure that the developer is taking the right path. Beginning developers may just seek approval at the end of each stage in the ADDIE process, but limiting validation just to those moments risks wasting time working on material that later gets rejected. Indeed, often the other reviewers in the process (subject matter experts, managers, program managers, etc.) dont want to get bothered with having to review smaller chunks of material. Just finish the whole thing and send it over, so that I can do it all at once, they say. But once they review the material, they often end up saying, This is wrong. This is wrong too. And this shouldnt go. You need to modify this one. And on, and on, requiring the developer to spend significant time redoing the material after it has already been worked on considerably. The course developer needs to get the reviewers involved repeatedly throughout development, not just at the end of each stage (unless its a very small course with a short development). A typical course development may look something like this: Research->Analysis->Validation->Research->Design objectives->Validation->Design list of topics->Design assessments outline->Validation->Design outline of lessons>Validation->Design outline of any supplementary material->Validation->Develop Lesson 1->Validation->Develop Lesson 2->Validation->Develop Lesson 3->Validation>Develop Lesson 4->Validation->Develop assessments->Validation->Develop 23

supplementary materials->Validation->Submit the entire course and all content together as a whole for final Validation. As you can see, there should be a lot of validation. Not necessarily the same people do all the validation. In the Analysis phase, it may be the program manager or project requester who validates. During the Design phase, it may be both the project requester and the subject matter experts (SMEs). During Development, it may be just the SMEs. But you get the idea: a significant amount of Validation should be going on. The developer should not be working in isolation. If you add up all the time taken for validationtime that the developer takes to look over the comments from others, implement the feedback and then request another review, or the time it takes for the developer to work out any disagreementsit really adds up to take as long as any other stage in the ADDIE methodology. But how would you represent it in the acronym? It would take at least a dozen Vs! But instead of excluding it from the acronym, lets try a different approach. We already have the modified acronym RARDDIE: Research, Analysis, Research, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation. I suggest modifying the acronym this way: RARDDIE-V You can take the -V to signify that the V for Validation occurs throughout the process. Some may think that Ive just finished mutilating the ADDIE process. But I think weve extended it and clarified it further, creating something more realistic. I hope that this study of the ADDIE methodology and possible ways to improve it can help you in your training development efforts.

24