Expert Instructional Designer Voices

The current economic challenge for students seeking to compete on a global scale with an advanced education has contributed to a continual rise in online enrollments (Allen & Seaman, 2010; Stern, 2009). However, Allen and Seaman (2012) reported that a persistent state of less than excellent online courses threatens to undermine the value of the educational opportunities afforded by the Internet. In spite of ongoing advances in instructional technologies, web-based higher academic pedagogies continued to demonstrate a lack of quality well into the new millennium (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009). The Means et al. (2009) study reported a perception of lower academic standards, a perception that was underscored with reports of an ongoing distrust in online courses by a majority of U.S. educators (Allen & Seaman, 2012). From an international perspective, Daniel (2007) referred to online pedagogies in India as “mostly rubbish” (Affordability section, para. 15), while Uysal and Kuzu (2009) reported a problem in Turkey of there being no online standards in existence. With due recognition of those making significant progress in improving the quality of online courses, there remains a question of whether enough is being done to meet growing learner demands.Given the perceptions of lower quality pedagogies, the practice of designing products for online learning has been called into question in terms of the competencies and leadership of instructional designers needed to improve the situation (Beaudoin, 2007; Kowch, 2009; Naidu, 2007; Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2004; Sims & Koszalka, 2008). This notion aligns with the business and trade industries where improvement of products has been inextricably linked to leadership. For example, after an earlier departure, Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and led an industry in reenvisioning ways of communicating information (Isaacson, 2011). Who can deny that his leadership resulted in exemplary products? From these observations, it was proposed that instructional design (ID) may likewise improve the quality of its products with applied leadership skills and attributes. To explore the assumption, a study was undertaken that would look for a potential connection between the quality of ID products and an instructional designer's leadership competencies as perceived by those in practice.Often meaningful perceptions and insight will come through discourse, therefore, this was the method selected for exploring the issue of leadership's impact on quality. The in-depth interviews conducted with an international panel of expert practitioners resulted in themes that conveyed perceptions of practice from lived experiences. In the form of expressions from the participants, the findings extended the standards usually understood for ID and listed by groups such as the Association of Educational Communications and Technology, the International Board of Standards for Performance, Training, and Instruction, and others (Association of Educational Communications and Technology, 2012; International Board of Standards for Performance, Training, and Instruction, 2000; Larson & Lockee, 2009). Specifically, the participants identified competencies for designing online pedagogies with the added dimension of applied personal leadership characteristics deemed critical to high quality designs—competencies, attributes, and duties. In addition, specific instructional strategy components known to predict engagement (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2008) and learner satisfaction (Sims & Stork, 2007) framed a model for leading the online design process forward—strategy, vision, personality (interpersonal skills), productivity, emotional/psychological strength, values, and duties (mentoring). As a result of these findings, the goal of the study was satisfied: to determine that leadership from instructional designers has the potential for significant impact on the quality of online higher educational products.Although standard ID competencies are well established for best practices, leadership competencies, per se, were nearly absent from the most common taxonomies (Association of Educational Communications and Technology, 2012; International Board of Standards for Performance, Training, and Instruction, 2000). While reviewing the cross-disciplinary literature, the topic of leadership as a characteristic of instructional designers was found to be just as scarce. There were, however, suggestions from a few that instructional designers may lead in the online educational transformation currently taking place by changing inappropriate or misapplied practices (Beaudoin, 2007; Kowch, 2009; Naidu, 2007; Reeves et al., 2004; Sims, 2006). Reports included ineffective and irrelevant design practices such as text-based lectures loaded into a course room, practice components, multiple choice quizzes and tests, a deck of slides for learning enhancement, a term paper—and not much more (Naidu, 2007). The notion of a misalignment of ID theory and online course designs resonated with Smith (in Fullan & Scott, 2009) who declared a quiet crisis in higher education from dependence on a model that “flies in the face of what we know about how people learn, the opportunities that technology presents to transform the educational enterprise and our historic record of failure with a rapidly diversifying population” (p. 20). In addition, Fullan and Scott (2009) observed a lack of leadership competency and experience in those expected to be change agents in education.Questioning the design approach of adapting traditional course designs to the online environment was important because studies were beginning to show that people actually learn differently interacting with a computer than with a human interface (Dede, Dieterle, Clarke, Jass-Ketelhut, & Nelson, 2007; Spiro & DeSchryver, 2009). On-screen text and slideshows may not have been engaging the learner, yet various other multimedia affordances were showing promise to capture and hold attention (Thompson et al., 2011). Dede et al.'s (2007) study found positive learning outcomes from students connecting and learning in new ways—with computers, essentially a new mode of learning (Beaudoin, 2007). Later, Dede's (2011) explorations took him into mobile learning and the potential of engaging in learning in new ways with cell phones. The challenge for educators and producers of pedagogical materials is how to progress along the same continuum as the new paradigm of digital learning affordances and deliveries.To explore the problem of quality in online course designs further, the small yet compelling study presented in this paper purposed to identify the critical ID competencies needed to produce effective designs for modern learning. Acting on the assumption that there may be a connection between leadership competencies—or characteristics in general—and an approach to the design process, a Delphi-style inquiry method of studying expert instructional design professionals in the context of practice was proposed and undertaken. Guiding the study were underlying questions: What is needed to improve quality in online courses? What characteristics of ID are lacking to meet global socio-educational demands? What competencies may be critical for designing effective pedagogies for a changing student body with diverse needs?A literature review was conducted for purposes of grounding the phenomenological study in an identifiable theoretical framework. The review and analysis of a comprehensive body of scholarly work revealed that leadership theory encompasses copious competencies, attributes, and have been applied to a of & 2009). 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