ABSTRACT
Instructional systems development (ISD) is a means by which learning environments can be efficiently designed and produced (Tennyson, 1995b). In addition to enhancing the production of learning environments, ISD has the promise of improving learning through the application of contemporary theories in learning, measurement, technology, and management. ISD has functioned as a scientific and applied field since the early 1960s and is widely used in industry, government agencies, higher and professional education, and commercial courseware development. This continuing growth in ISD is the result of a number of forces and developments both within and outside the field. At the present time, however, there is much concern about the static nature of ISD and about the role it may play in future instructional design activities. An important reason for the apparent concerns over ISD is caused in large part by its very growth. By any contemporary standards, ISD is a complex system that may actually inhibit effectiveness in learning and efficiency in instructional design. As an introduction to this section on planning and decision making in instructional design, I am proposing a contemporary view of ISD that employs science-wide concepts of complexity theory. Rather than viewing ISD as linear process offering a standard solution to instructional design problems, proposed is a problem-solving approach that adjusts to individual problem situations.
