Posted by Kevin Stall on September 9, 2009 at 10:03am
I remember years ago when I first started developing courseware, I was taught to write the assessment before I wrote the courseware content. I never found this particularly practical from a development aspect. I was wondering if any one actually does develop this way.
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Hi Kevin. I don't always do this but have often found it useful to draft the assessment before writing the actual course content. The main reason I do this is to pin down the scope and provide a focus for the content. Often there is a risk of scope creep, or there is a vast amount of material to cover in a given time. Working with the SMEs to determine what they require the learner to know - what they must get right in the assessment to pass it - effectively sets out the scope of the training. If something doesn't need to be covered in the assessment, it doesn't need to be in the training. If scope creep does occur while the content is being developed, it's useful to have an assessment, even if only a draft, ready to refer back to. In terms of development, I haven't found that this causes any problems. I always allow time for writing the assessment in the instructional design schedule, so it really doesn't make any difference whether this is done before the rest of the ID work or afterwards. What is it exactly that you've found impractical in terms of development?
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