Instructional Strategies: A Preliminary Taxonomy.

This paper proposes that instruction consists of four relatively independent facets: learner aptitudes, content structure, delivery systems, and instructional strategies. The purpose of this paper is to develop a taxonomic vocabulary and a model for portraying instructional strategies. Instructional strategies are defined as sequences of two or more instructional displays. To describe individual displays, eight variables are identified: content type, content mode, content representation, mathemagenic prompting, response conditions, response mode, response representations and mathemagenic feedback. Various parameters are suggested for each. To describe the relationship between displays, quantitative and sequence specifications and a class of qualitative interdisplay relationships are suggested. Manipulation of the qualitative relationships is considered to be the factor that affects instructional effectiveness and efficiency. The proposed theory and accompanying flow chart conventions should have value in any discipline for the development of instructional theory, the synthesis and interpretation of research, the analysis of existing strategies, and the design of materials and systems. (CR)