Past, present, and post(?)-pandemic future: Instructional designers in higher education

ABSTRACT

At the onset of widespread COVID-19 in early 2020, institutions of higher education were abruptly faced with the need to rely on educational technology as a primary mode of teaching students, referred to as emergency remote teaching (ERT). Almost overnight, there was a corresponding and urgent need for instructional designer support and expertise. The realities of sudden, ubiquitous online educational delivery may have impacted the practice, practitioners, and future of instructional design in higher education. This dissertation is composed of three studies focused on instructional designers' experiences in higher education, before, during, and following the COVID-19- associated shift to ERT.With this dissertation as a whole and within each study individually, it is possible to begin to understand what it is like to be an instructional designer in higher education what has changed for them since the height of the pandemic;what has not changed;and most importantly, what do they need as professionals and who can provide it for them?The first study is a literature review focused on identifying the roles, challenges, supports experienced by instructional designers in higher education as captured in scholarship from 2000-2020. The second study extends the body of research outlined in the first study by taking a participatory, qualitative approach to explore the challenges experienced by instructional designers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the supports they think can help them address these challenges. The third study presents a qualitative investigation focused on the future of instructional design in higher education as envisioned by instructional designers, including exploring their ideas of the agency they possess to influence that future. Together, the second and third studies aim to update and contextualize the findings of the first study in the current post-/pandemic era. These three studies, individually and together, illuminate instructional designers' experiences in higher education during what may ultimately prove to have been a tipping point for technology-supported education and the field of instructional design in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)