The use of case stories to examine the instructional designer and subject matter expert interaction

This paper examines a qualitative study which developed and began testing a process to assist instructional designers in eliciting unfamiliar content from subject matter experts and in conceptualizing that content. Called by the working designation "Content Production Process" (CPP) the approach draws upon a variety of theories, constructs and methods including advance organizers, schema theory, consultation practices, current elicitation procedures in instructional design, knowledge acquisition strategies in constructing expert systems, interviewing strategies and knowledge mapping. This qualitative study focussed on how one instructional designer aided by the CPP interacted with, elicited and conceptualized unfamiliar content. Through the process of the study it was possible to examine the situation in depth, detail and from a holistic perspective. Case stories as opposed to case study were used to investigate the instructional designer-subject matter expert (SME) interaction within the real-world context of a military setting. They attempted to focus on discovery, insight and understanding from the perspectives of the instructional designer and the SME's being studied. In this way they attempted to "illustrate conclusions to which the author ... was ... already committed" (Biddle & Anderson, 1986, p. 238). Such case stories are intended to provide new insights and understandings and "... not provide conclusions, however, that reflect evidence" (p. 238). Three major insights were gained into the conceptualization of unfamiliar content and the use of the CPP. Firstly, the novice instructional designer found that knowledge map construction was a useful tool for assisting him to think carefully about the unfamiliar content from the interviews. It is reasoned that transforming the content into a visuo-spatial representation such as a knowledge map may promote deeper processing of the content. Secondly, the knowledge map appears to have been a useful "prop" for assisting the instructional designer in interacting with the subject matter experts. It seemed to provide a common focus of attention for both designer and expert. Thirdly, the instructional designer found that combining a "teachback" procedure with the knowledge map provided a powerful means of checking his understanding of the content against that of the expert