Is the Field of Instructional Technology a Profession

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Is the field of instructional technology a profession? An investigation.

By Steve McCreaAssignment 1 for EDD 8120

Perspectives in ITDEProfessor Michael Simonson

March 2012 (late submission)

Is the field of instructional technology a profession? According to JamesFinn, a profession has, at least, the following characteristics:

1. an intellectual technique,2. an application of that technique to practical affairs,3. a period of long training necessary before entering into theprofession,4. an association of the members of the profession into a closely knitgroup with ahigh quality of communication between members,5. a series of standards and a statement of ethics which is enforced,and6. an organized body of intellectual theory constantly expanding byresearch.

After each part of Finn’s six-part test for becoming a profession hasbeen examined, it will become apparent that the focus of scrutinyshould be on the last two parts. The bulk of this paper will center onproviding evidence for the deficiencies in those two parts and there willbe a proposed remedy to move the vocation closer to becoming aprofession.

1. an intellectual technique,

2. an application of that technique to practical affairs,

3. a period of long training necessary before entering into theprofession,

4. an association of the members of the profession into a closely knitgroup with a



high quality of communication between members,

5. a series of standards and a statement of ethics which is enforced,and

This section is perhaps the weakest link in the chain of elements thatmake a profession in Finn’s definition.

If I have a complaint or dispute with an automobile mechanic, there areprocedures for resolving the dispute.

In short, is there a system of certifying that the person doing designwork or recommending a program to apply educational technology istrained and effective at doing this work?

There are two sources of standards for evaluating the training programsfor instructional technologists. According to AECT president Phil Harris,

According to Maria Chilcote, an employee at The Training Clinic (atraining company based in Seal Beach, California), training in the field isbased on standards developed in part by her employer. Jean Barbazette(who founded The Training Clinic) works on the committee that adoptsand amends the standards for the field at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and she contributes to the standardsissued by ISPI. Chilcote emphasized in our conversation howBarbazette’s participation in the standard setting has influenced how thecompany trains its clients. “The standards guide us in how we shapethe curriculum.” But she emphasized what she sees as a gap in the

field: “There is no place that a customer can turn to lodge a complaintor to see if a particular instructional designer has complaints registeredagainst him” (personal conversation, February 16, 2012).

Individual training companies are not set up to act as registrars of complaints. According to Darryl Sink of dsink.com (a training firm),there is no national or state office of professional regulation forinstructional technologists, instructional designers or educational



technologists (personal conversation, February 20, 2012).

There

6. an organized body of intellectual theory constantly expanding byresearch.

The lack of an easy method to resolve a dispute with aninstructional technologist is

According to Clark and Estes (1998), “we do not have an educaitonaltechnology. … When we succeed, we generate limited contextualized,non-transferable craft solutions to educational problems…. [We] tend tocit[e] research studies that are often poorly designed and largelyirrelevant to support interventions that seldom generalize beyond theirinitial application.”

Later, Clark and Estes (1999) defined an “authentic technology” as“educational solutions

A key “cultural” point is “we must ask whether the problems andsolutions addressed by a specific technology will be acceptable to ourclients.” (p. 250). This point can be applied to the case (mentionedabove in section five) where the APEX software failed to meet the needsof students or teachers at Mavericks and Life Skills schools in FortLauderdale.

Although the industry currently lacks a central place wheredisputes can be highlighted and potentially resolved (Finn’s fifth

condition), the sixth part of Finn’s prescription for a profession appearsto have the potential for being met. The fact that researchers arepointing out deficiencies in research would appear to be a strength.Clark and Estes proposed a partnership between

In Finn’s definition, the intellectual theory supporting the field of educational technologies needs to be expanding through research. Thesheer volume of publication in educational technologies is staggering.



However, in an editorial, Simonson warned in 2009 that “many still donot appreciate the importance of studying educational innovations usingthe appropriate application of the scientific method.” He echoed Clark

and Estes about the need to “move from the realm of a craft to that of aprofession” by using more rigorous standards in research. With thisadmonition coming ten years after Clark and Estes, one fears that littleprogress has been made.

Conclusion The task was to determine whether or not the industry is truly a

profession. From two of the six checkpoints given by Finn we canconclude that there is more work to be done. The deficiencies pointedout by Clark and Estes in the quality of research (Finn’s “organized bodyof theory”) appear to remain with us, in part because the “potential of

science to inform educational technology” (Clark and Estes) is certainlynot filtering down to interactions with clients (in the anecdotes relatedabove). The larger deficit appears to be in the way that standards arenot enforced, namely that there does not appear to be a widelyaccepted method for poor design to be brought to wider public scrutiny.

The titles of “instructional technologists,” “instructional designers” and“educational technologists” can sound like professionals to the layperson. I began this paper assuming that these professions existed, inpart because there are people who make their living using these titles.Until clients of technologists can report the “bad apples” (as

conveniently as they can single out a doctor or auto mechanic) and worktoward dispute resolution in the public eye, it would appear thateducational technologists in general can claim to be an occupation and avocation, but not yet a profession in the way that Jim Finn proposednearly sixty years ago.

References

AECT (2000). NCATE program standards. Association for EducationalCommunications and Technology.

Apex Learning (2012a). Core courses. Retrieved on February 15, 2012at http://apexlearning.com/Catalog.htm?id_catalog=5.

http://apexlearning.com/Catalog.htm?id_catalog=5

http://apexlearning.com/Catalog.htm?id_catalog=5





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Is the Field of Instructional Technology a Profession