This capstone details the instructional design process for developing a financial training course intended for administrative staff working at the University of Southern California (USC) University Advancement department. The purpose of this training is to provide the administrative staff with the knowledge and motivation to help them successfully process reimbursements and invoice payments. The intended learning environment for this course is a blended, non-formal, human-centered, online, and synchronous environment. The blended instructional environment will emphasize self-directed learning, minimize extraneous load, and incorporate job-related examples. By the end of this course, the administrative staff will be able to: (a) identify the various business procedures, (b) apply them appropriately when processing payments, and (c) increase their confidence in their ability to process payments correctly.

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According to Smith and Ragan (2005), the instructional design process is a systematic and reflective process in which learning and instructional materials are designed, developed, and implemented. For this capstone, the ADDIE instructional design model is used to effectively develop the training. The ADDIE model consists of five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (Smith & Ragan, 2005). In the analysis phase, the instructional problem is determined, the instructional goals and objectives are created and the learning environment is selected. The design phase uses the analysis information to determine the overall instructional approach, select the appropriate medium, and create an assessment plan. In the development phase, the assessment, evaluation plans, and learning activities are developed. The implementation phase launches the training. Finally, in the evaluation phase, feedback is collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the training with the purpose of revising and improving the design as needed (Smith & Ragan, 2005).

 

This capstone focuses on the first three phases of ADDIE: analysis, design, and development. The figure below summarizes the steps followed in each of the three phases to develop the Financial Training.

 

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