Page 67 - Making Instruction Work

chap 6 3/4/97 4:14 PM Page 55

6

Task Analysis

Situation: You suspect there are things people should be
doing that they cannot now do. To verify whether
instruction will be needed, you want to paint a picture
of what competent people do when performing the way
you need others to perform.

One of our goals is to develop and deliver instruction that
prepares people to perform in a useful manner in a “real
world” situation, whether that “real world” happens to be a job
or another course. Another goal is to make sure that the
instruction itself teaches those useful skills with as little wasted
motion and effort as possible. To accomplish those goals, we
need to know what people have to be able to do before they can
begin practicing the tasks to be performed. Enter the task
analysis.
Task analysis is the name given to a collection of techniques
used to help make the components of competent performance
visible. It’s a set of ways to draw a picture of what competent
people actually do, or should do, when performing a task.
From this picture it is then possible to derive the skills that
anyone would have to have before they, too, can perform the
task competently. It is a way to visualize the steps and decisions
involved in carrying out a procedure.