The review process in formative evaluation of instructional text : the role of content experts and instructional designers

• Main Author: Saroyan-Farivar, Alenoush
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 1989
• Subjects: Problem solving; Content analysis (Communication); Curriculum evaluation > Research
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=75906

This study explores and describes the processes of formative evaluation as carried out by content experts and instructional designers. It assumes that formative evaluation is an ill-defined, complex, problem solving task. Six experts (three Content Experts and three Instructional Designers), participated in this descriptive study. Subjects reviewed and revised a unit from a draft version of a self-instructional module on microbiology, while thinking aloud. Two coding schemes were developed and applied to the think-aloud protocols. Overall inter-coder reliability exceeded 89%. Qualitative data were used to describe the processes of formative evaluation, convergence patterns, and the degree of specificity of comments across subjects. Results suggest that there were between group differences in task representation, in the employed strategies, and in features of the text which were commented upon more frequently. Within group similarities in the outcome of formative evaluation were salient on a superficial level. Within group differences were more apparent when comments were compared qualitatively.