Page 9 - Principles of instructional design

The Outcomes of Instruction 47
disagreement over this point. However, the information is essential to these
events. The learner must have such information available to learn a particular
application.
Information may also be of importance for the transfer of learning from one
situation to another. For example, a student of government may hit upon the
idea that the persistence of bureaucracy bears some resemblance to the growth
of an abscess in the human body. If he or she has some information about
abscesses, such an analogy may make it possible to think of causal relationships
pertaining to bureaucracies that would not otherwise be possible. A variety of
cognitive strategies and intellectual skills may now be brought to bear on this
problem by the student, and new knowledge is thereby generated. The initial
transfer in such an instance is made possible by an "association of ideas," in
other words, by the possession and use of certain classes of information.
Finding out whether students have learned some particular facts or some
particular organized items of information is a matter of observing whether they
can communicate them. The simplest way to do this, of course, is to ask for a
statement of the information either orally or in writing. This is the basic method
commonly employed by a teacher to assess what information has been learned.
In the early grades, assessing the communications children can make may
require the use of simple oral questions. Pictures and objects that the child can
point to and manipulate may also be employed.

Motor Skills
Another kind of capability we expect human beings to learn is a motor skill
(Fitts and Posner, 1967; Singer, 1980). The individual learns to skate, to ride a
bicycle, to steer an automobile, to use a can opener, to jump rope. There are also
motor skills to be learned as part of formal school instruction, such as printing
letters (Table 3-1), drawing a straight line, or aligning a pointer on a dial face.
Despite the fact that school instruction is so largely concerned with intellectual
functions, we do not expect a well-educated adult to be lacking in certain motor
skills (such as writing) that may be used every day. A motor skill is one of the
most obvious kinds of human capabilities. Children learn a motor skill for each
printed letter they make with a pencil on paper. The function of the skill, as a
capability, is simply to make possible the motor performance. Of course, these
motor performances may themselves enter into further learning. For example,
students employ the skill of printing letters when they are learning to make (and
print) words and sentences. The acquisition of a motor skill can be reasonably
inferred when the students can perform the act in a variety of contexts. Thus, if
youngsters have acquired the skill of printing the letter E, they should be able to
perform this motor act with a pen, a pencil, or a crayon, on any flat surface,
constructing letters with a range of sizes. Obviously, one would not want to
conclude that the skill has been learned from a single instance of an £ printed
with pencil on a particular piece of paper. But several £'s, in several contexts,