Four Component Instructional Design Model Explained
What is the 4 Component Instructional Design 4C/ID Model?
Many experts agree that education programs in medical schools should be based on outcomes and competencies. Therefore, CanMEDS and ACGME published competency frameworks. In these frameworks, medical students not only should be equipped with medical knowledge; but also should have many skills such as communication skills, professionalism, leadership, since physicians have to use such skills besides medical knowledge while practicing medicine. These are complex skills and performed simultaneously. So, how can we teach these complex skills to medical students?
In this video, we talk about the most useful instructional design model for medical education and health professions education that needs to teach students complex skills: 4C/ID Model.
The flamingo is excited to explain the model for you.
To watch it: https://youtu.be/kL1osJo0WVs
Skills that should be learnt during the medical education are complex. Curricula overcome this complexity by breaking up activities related to the acquisition of knowledge, attitude, and skills that the physicians should have. The educational programs present each one separately, it can be called as part-task. For instance, measuring blood pressure is learned in one course, the other lesson includes gall bladder pathologies, another course is about communication skills. Since all of these are dealt with separately, the question “why do we learn this?” arises on student’s minds. Students find difficult to put what they learn into the particular medical context. Integration is very difficult.
At this point, whole-task approach that enable students to learn all things related to a specific context as a whole, just as they encounter in their professional life. These whole-task practices originate from daily professional life of physicians. For instance, consider a patient who apply to her family physician with knee pain. The student first observe how the physician takes history from the patient, then examination, diagnosis, treatment, and communication with the patient. Then the student does all these things herself but she receive support from the physician. As student improves, support gets decreased, and she complete all of it on her own. Eventually the student is able to perform the complex skill without any support.
It is best to take a systematic approach to design the instruction of such complex skills. Instructional design models are also the primary sources to be referred in this sense. Since we are talking about complex skills, the most suitable model for this type of teaching is perhaps 4C/ID ( Four Component Instructional Design) Model .
The 4C / ID Model consists of four components. These:
1. Learning Tasks
2. Supportive Information (theory)
3. Procedural Information (the how to’s)
4. Part-Task Practice (focused repetitive practice)
In the first component, “learning tasks”, complex tasks are selected. These tasks should reflect physicians’ professional life, and should encompass the task wholly. In order to ensure that the acquired knowledge can be transferred to different situations, the tasks should be different from each other. While some tasks could be simple relativelty, the other ones could be complex. But all of them should be in line with whole-task approach.
As the student improve herself and complete all these tasks, the support is gradually reduced. In addition to that, reflection is vital during and after the tasks.
Then, within the scope of the first component of the model, assessment tools are developed. These tools have high importance in competence-based programs because they help us to determine whether the student reached the competent level or not. It also has an important function to provide feedback to students. By the way, assessment itself too should be whole-task.
When assessment tools are developed, we have standards that show “competent or incompetent”. Students should also be informed of these standards beforehand. For this, a self-assessment test can be placed beginning of the instruction. Another method is to show students a worked example. This demonstration can be done with a video record. Thus, students know what the level is that they have to reach when they completed the course.
As the last step of the learning tasks component, learning tasks are put in order. This process is an important part that shapes the learning environment. Tasks are divided into “task classes” according to their difficulty and ordered from easy to difficult. Difficulty does not mean only the high load of information; it also is about including more advance skills such as reasoning and problem solving. The tasks in each task class should have similar difficulty. The support given to the student is at the highest level when she is performing the first task in each task class. Then it decreases over time, and it should be minimal, and perhaps none, when the last task in that class is being performed. The same process carries on from the first to the last task of the next task classes. If the diversity of tasks in the same class is as rich as real professional life, the mental schemas of the students become likewise rich.
After the first component of the model has been completed in this way, the second component, the “supportive information”, comes. This component helps students to acquire problem solving and reasoning skills necessary for performing their learning tasks.
In organizing the supportive information, materials containing necessary information are prepared and placed for each task class, and those materials are accessible to students throughout the task.
These materials could consist of lecture notes, articles, feedback etc. The important thing is that the materials are relevant to the tasks and they provide sufficient theoretical knowledge on the subject. A detail on them is that materials containing supportive information do not provide information about the routine parts of the tasks. Rather, it contains information about the parts that are not in the routine of the task, which are not always encountered. So these should not be about the parts that the students will be able to do automatically after the instruction. The purpose of providing these materials is to prevent interruption of training due to the lack of information that is not entirely related to the tasks.
Now it’s the third component’s turn: Procedural information.
The information given in this component is as to how to perform the routine parts of the task. Procedural information is given just-in-time when the student needs that information while performing the task. For instance, when a student needs to open a patient’s laboratory result, the procedural information is given such as “1. Click on the name of the patient, 2. Click on the name of the investigation you want”. This information is given whenever the student needs it. After a while, the flow of information is gradually reduced as the student is able to carry out the procedure without the need to provide information.
The last component in 4C/ID is part-task practice. The aim of this component is to strengthen a certain part of what has been learned in previous parts. After all, the destination that we want to arrive is to gain an automation as to performing the task. Therefore, repetitive practice is important. Automation in a certain area is gained not only in practices that require physical skills such as measuring blood pressure, suturing, establishing vascular access, but also in diagnosis. For example, it is ensured that the student make practice over and over to diagnose the young child with fever. At the end of it, the student gains an automation to diagnose.
So, as you see, 4C/ID is a very useful model to design an instruction including complex skills’ teaching. I hope many medical school adopt this model to use it instructional design process.
The source that I used in preparation of this video is at the description of the video: https://youtu.be/kL1osJo0WVs
See you and adios para amigos.
And also, don’t forget the flamingo.
