Requiem for a Development System: Reflections on Knowledge-Based, Generative Instruction

Over 10 years ago, the U. S. Air Force undertook a project to make it easier and less costly to develop interactive courseware. The 10-year span of this effort saw the development and field testing of a prototype, known as XAIDA, that makes it easy for subject-matter experts to develop interactive courseware. XAIDA uses a generative, knowledge-based approach. A developer uses a computer program known as Develop to make a Knowledge Base representing the target subject matter. Another program, Deliver, manages a student’s interactions with the knowledge base thereby generating instruction suited to the student’s individual needs. XAIDA was oriented towards maintenance training and provided, in particular, training in identifying a device’s physical characteristics, and making inferences about its behavior. In a wide-ranging series of field tests, XAIDA proved to be easily accessible to developers and effective in training students. XAIDA represents the use of computers to generate instructional interactions directly from information structures that make up knowledge. It therefore requires developers to think about knowledge rather than instructional procedures, and it requires designers to think in terms of generally applicable instructional methods rather than individual instructional designs. XAIDA offered sufficient support for the conceptual support of developers, but more work is needed on the mechanisms needed to support conceptual change in the design process.

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