Four Major Success Criteria of Instructional Systems

SUMMARY

Previous writers have cited more than a hundred criteria that characterize a successful instructional system. Since no designer of instructional systems can bear so many items in mind simultaneously, this paper proposes a concise set of four major success criteria that subsume them all. These are:

• economic efficiency — whether cost could be decreased by altering the mix of inputs

• user effectiveness — whether value could be increased by altering the mix of outputs

• marginal effectiveness — whether small increases in cost yield large increases in value.

Overall system success depends on the algebraic product of the four criteria. This multiplier effect implies that overall success is strongly affected even by small imperfections in any one of the criteria. Therefore instructional designers should address all the major criteria in order to develop optimal instructional systems.