What is ADDIE?
ADDIE (an acronym for Analysis, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) is a traditional model used by instructional designers to create courses. ADDIE covers the course creation process from start to finish and consists of the following five elements:
- Analysis — find out what the business needs, what the learners know and don’t know, and specific details of tasks the learners are required to undertake
- Design — create comprehensive documentation, write objectives, assessments, and arrange digestible content into an appropriate order for learning to occur
- Develop — build and test your course, run a pilot to a small sample group
- Implement — upload your course to an LMS, communicate course availability to the business
- Evaluate — conduct evaluations on the performance of learners and effect this has on the business
ADDIE is a ‘waterfall’ model, which means you work your way through it from top-to-bottom once each stage is completed.
Once you have conducted your analysis and identified requirements, you move onto the design stage. The design stage allows you to create a blueprint of what has to be developed before you then work through the remaining stages of implementation and evaluation.
Why is ADDIE used?
ADDIE is widely used across the Learning and Development field because of its comprehensive and transparent process. Detailed documentation promotes thorough analysis that influences the design and development decisions that follow.
In addition, reporting on the current status of the project and expected delivery date is made easier using this linear development process.
Recent efforts have been made to adapt ADDIE to be more iterative by adding evaluation after each individual stage. However, there are a number of AGILE inspired models that do this job more effectively.
How does ADDIE work with interactive online courses?
ADDIE has its place in the toolbox of any Instructional Designer. It provides a systematic approach to the whole course creation process and encourages deep investigation during the analysis phase. If the analysis is thorough, the remaining development can be successful, especially if the underlying circumstances don’t change.
However, when developing interactive digital material, it’s difficult to create content that is usable, interactive, and promotes learning without early testing. If testing is left too late and major changes are made to the design and development of your course, the resulting time and cost implications can be severe.
When ADDIE is used for digital learning creation, it is imperative that early testing is undertaken with your learner population.
A tried and trusted method for course creation. However, can be too rigid for interactive digital learning modules resulting in costly redevelopment costs. “
Review
Pros: Documentation, step-by-step guide, delivery visibility.
Cons: Rigid approach, can result in costly redevelopment.