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Science and instructional design may seem like they're worlds apart but that’s not necessarily the case. I've spent the last 10+ years working as a clinical researcher and regulatory professional. Diving deeper into instructional design triggered an ephiphany for me - the same skills that I used to be successful in research are also useful in instructional design! Not only are they useful, they are necessary. After contemplating my future in instructional design and seeing question marks, I finally felt like I had a win. Yay for me!!
You may be thinking "I already know - project management and communication skills, right?" Well, yes you are right, kind of... Skills like project management and communication are some of the obvious ones, but there's also some that aren't as glaring.
Check them out below!
1. Teaching
Whether you're a research assistant telling a potential participant about your research study; a research coordinator training hospital clinical staff on the logistics of your study; or an auditor explaining federal regulations to a principal investigator, you are teaching! Not only are you teaching, but you are taking complex ideas that are different from normal practices and explaining them to people who may not have any baseline knowledge of the subject. You are also telling people how to apply the new concept. Being able to do this requires an understanding of the full picture and knowledge of the objective(s) so that you can fully explain it to the people you're teaching. This is a great skill to have in instructional design!
2. Creating Learning Materials
When I was a research coordinator I worked on small teams and held a lot of responsibilities. At one time I even managed 11 open studies at once! Because we were dealing with people and money there was little to no room for error, but there were sooo many things that could have gone wrong! To mitigate these risks I created databases, logs, checklists, flowcharts, and step-by-step instructions for almost everything. I also created job aids for the research assistants, back-up coordinators, recruitment flyers to advertise the studies, and even quick reference sheets for the clinical staff.
Back then I spent a lot of time figuring out how to turn 100-page documents into 1 page without losing accuracy or quality, but I'm glad I was able to learn and practice that skill. Knowing how to simplify a process to make it easily digestible is definitely a plus in instructional design.
If you have an eye for design that’s a even better! I admit I am a more of "making sure all the information is there" than a "...and make it look pretty" person - but that’s an area where I'm working to improve.
3. Conducting Needs Assessments
When I was an auditor, I would usually have several meetings with the study team - one in the beginning to let them know my plan of action, one at the end of each day of the audit, and a debrief meeting with the principal investigator and study team to discuss my findings post-audit. During the meetings I would ask questions to clarify any gray areas, provide my recommendations for correcting issues, and let them know of any corrective actions. I thought of myself as an investigator with the intent to learn about their processes and, if I saw issues, asking questions to get to the root cause in efforts to eliminate the issues and improve performance.
Is it just me or is this similar to the discovery process in instructional design in which we meet with subject matter experts, employees and other stakeholders to identify their problem, determine if training is needed and determine the type of training that would work best.?
Hmmm...seems pretty similar to me!
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