The ADDIE Model

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Everyone has an opinion on this age-old question and many friendly debates have ensued depending on your answer. Generally speaking, you can follow the logic of the most common debates.

“The egg came first,” they say. “Because you didn’t specify what kind of egg.”

“The chicken came first,” they rebut. “Because you can’t have an egg without a chicken to lay it.”

If you ask me, I’m on Team Egg – because specifics matter and the ancestors of chickens were laying eggs if I’m to believe The Land Before Time or Jurassic Park franchises.

Curriculum experts and instructional designers alike could have a similar debate over the ADDIE model. Did we organically come to this five-step process after years of self-evaluation in the classroom? Or did we adapt it to a larger scale of education and training from another sector?

Allen (2016) shares that “the ADDIE process is an adaptation of the systems engineering process to problems of workplace training and instruction” (p.431). While the first adaption of the model included four primary facets (objectives, pretest, instruction, and posttest), it was found to be strict within the myriad of instructional environments it was being used in (Allen, 2016, p. 431).

Today’s ADDIE model includes five primary step, best demonstrated by the figure from Gustafson and Branch (2002):

Figure 1

The Analysis phase focuses on developing an understanding of the needs of your client, the audience to be served, and the topic to be taught or reinforced. It’s in this phase of the process that you do grassroots research with the intent of defining the issue or opportunity that needs support to reach a goal or specific progress marker.

Design is the next phase of the model. Here you begin to define and outline the project to solve the issue you found in the Analysis phase. Think of the Design phase as your game plan. You’ve defined your challenge in Analysis, so you want to create a playbook of maneuvers and special plays to help your team champion the issue.

Following the Design phase, you’ll enter the Development step. Envision this part of the process as practice. You have the playbook completed, but you need to run through each move and play to master it. You’re spending time coaching your teammates and working to create the content for the task at hand. You’re no longer looking at rough drafts, but instead pushing to create final drafts and test run the items you’ve created.

Once you’ve reached a level of confidence in your product as an answer to the issue you defined in the Analysis phase, you’re ready for the Implementation step. Think of this as the game day. Your team is practiced and ready, your playbook is perfected and you’re ready to step foot on the court (or field, your choice). Implementation means taking the time to use your materials but also making sure you’ve prepared ways to receive feedback.

The feedback portion of implementing your program is really the Evaluation step of the entire model. You want to provide the opportunity for participants to share what they feel has worked for them well or what hasn’t worked well, as well as collect completion data to measure success against the learning objectives you outlined in the Analysis phase. Feedback is essential to the Evaluation step, and really the entire process. It allows you to ensure that the work done in the Design and Development phases is reaching the goals set forth in the Analysis phase.

It's important to note that the figure from Gustafson and Branch (2002) is a cycle with five independent bubbles representing the steps. The ADDIE model is not especially linear, and there will be times when your steps overlap and complement each other to reach their respective goals. Implementing your program without knowing your evaluation tactics would be futile in your efforts of monitoring success; it’s essential these steps work together for the goal.

Regardless of if the egg or chicken or ADDIE model as we know it came first, this five step process helps instructional designers move forward through an opportunity of growth in an organized manner. Stay tuned for more blog content outlining each step and some tips to help you achieve success with ADDIE!

Sources:

Allen, W. C. (2006). Overview and Evolution of the ADDIE Training System. Advances in

Developing Human Resources, 8(4), 430-441.

Gustafson, K. L., & Branch, R. M. (2002). Survey of Instructional Development Models. Fourth

Edition. ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology.