Domain Testing: Divide and Conquer - Testing Education

objectives of the instruction. Being able to evaluate the effectiveness of the
domain testing method relative to other testing techniques or being able to
judge when one method is more applicable than others to a situation is an
example of the highest level in Bloom’s taxonomy.
3.03 Instructional Design
According to Gagne et al. (1988), “The purpose of instruction, however it may be
done, is to provide support to the processes of learning” (p. 178). There are 10
stages of instructional design discussed in the literature, and they are outlined in the
subsequent sections (Dick & Carey, 1985; Dick et al., 2001; Gagne et al., 1988;
Morrison et al., 2004; Smith & Ragan, 1999).
3.03.01 Identify Instructional Goals
What exactly do you want the learners to achieve? The instructor has to determine
what the need for designing the instruction really is and what performance is
expected out of the learners after undertaking the instruction. These desired
expectations can be identified as instructional goals. “A goal may be defined as a
desirable state of affairs” (Gagne et al., 1988, p. 21).
According to Gagne et al. (1988), this can be done by studying the goals,
comparing them with the current scenario and determining what is missing in the
current scenario. This will give direction to the design of instruction. In my case, I
realized that the existing training materials on domain testing were not thorough
enough and there weren’t enough assessment items in the form of exercise
questions to train learners for every task involved with doing domain testing. This
missing piece was my motivation in developing the training material the way I did.
3.03.02 Conduct Instructional Analysis/Task Analysis
What tasks need to be performed to achieve the instructional goals and what skills
are required to perform these tasks? The purpose of this stage is to do skill analysis
47