Page 203 - Making Instruction Work

chap 16 3/11/97 5:10 PM Page 189

tryout 189

thing you need to know is that the answers to your tryout
questions are readily available. Whatever you may want to
know about how well your module is working or how well it
fits your audience, your students will be your best source of
information. And why not? The instruction is being developed
for their benefit, so they should be consulted on how well the
job has been done.
After all, when your physician whacks you on the back and
asks, “Did that hurt?” he or she is asking you for information.
When a shoe salesclerk asks you how the fit feels, information
from the customer is being requested. So be sure to include
your students as the key source of information about how well
the instruction fits and about how well it works.
There are two kinds of tryout. The first is a check of the
individual module or lesson plan during the development
process. It involves trying it out on one person at a time, until
all the major kinks have been removed. The second is a tryout
of the entire course. Here’s how.

For Self-Paced Courses

Try out each module on at least one person before you test
the entire course. Find someone (one person at a time; if you
use large samples at this point, you’ll be wasting your time and
theirs) as close to your target population as possible. If a mem-
ber of your target population is available, fine. But it isn’t nec-
essary. As long as you find someone similar to your TPop. who
cannot perform the objective, that person will be a big help.
But do a tryout even if the person most available cannot
understand the technical language of the module or doesn’t fit
the TPop. in other ways. That individual will still locate over-
sights and errors that you will want to correct before you let
anyone else see your work. Here are the steps: