A Method Engineering Approach to Evaluate Instructional Products

The evaluation of instructional products is widely recognized as an essential activity of any teaching-learning process. Instructional products, such as online courses, training programs, tutorials, instructional modules, course management systems, and web-based study guides, are required to be evaluated during their development, usage or at the end of the learning process. This kind of evaluation is not a simple process. It demands the use of resources, such as people, tools, methods and time, which must be properly planned and controlled to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We describe, in this paper, an evaluation method for guiding educators, teachers, and instructional designers to evaluate different types of instructional products. The proposed method intends to solve problems that were identified in the existing evaluation methods, such as the lack of generality, adaptability and manageability. This method is general, complete, technique independent, well-structured and adaptable. Its design was based on principles and concepts taken from Method Engineering and Software Engineering. It is composed of a process model, a product model, and a team model. These three components are properly integrated in order to effectively guide an evaluation team during the process of evaluating instructional products. Its main contribution is in providing a general methodological framework that can be easily adapted to evaluate a variety of instructional products