Macro-Design · A design process of weeks to months that produces anything from a single module to a full programme.

Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model

The Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model treats instruction as a system in which goals, learner analysis, objectives, assessments, strategies and materials all depend on each other. It is one of the most detailed instructional design models and puts strong weight on aligning assessment with objectives and on formative evaluation before rollout.

When to use Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model

When designing a larger training programme or curriculum with clear, observable skills and time for pilot testing. Less suited to exploratory or emergent workshops.

How Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model works

Use it as the backbone for a multi-session programme where performance must be demonstrable: define goals and objectives first, write the assessments, then choose activities that practise exactly what is assessed.

Phases of Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model

  1. Identify instructional goals: Name what participants should be able to do after the programme, in terms of real work performance. This becomes the anchor every later decision is checked against.
  2. Conduct instructional analysis: Break the goal into the steps and sub-skills people need to perform it. The result is a skills map that shows what must be learned and in which order.
  3. Analyze learners and contexts: Look at who the participants are, what they already know, and where they will apply the skill. Both the training setting and the work setting shape the design.
  4. Write performance objectives: Turn each sub-skill into a measurable objective with behaviour, conditions and criteria. These objectives are what the session activities must deliver.
  5. Develop assessment instruments: Design the checks before the content: practice tasks, observations or tests that show whether each objective is met. This keeps activities honest about what they really train.
  6. Develop instructional strategy: Decide how each objective is taught: pre-instruction, content presentation, practice with feedback, and follow-through. This is where methods and session flow are chosen.
  7. Develop and select materials: Produce or pick the worksheets, cases, slides and job aids the strategy needs. Reuse existing material where it fits the objectives.
  8. Design and conduct formative evaluation: Try the programme with a few learners or a small group and collect data on where it breaks down. Use this before a full rollout.
  9. Revise instruction: Feed the evaluation findings back into every earlier step, not just the materials. A summative evaluation of overall effectiveness can follow once the design is stable.

Key principles

  • Instruction as an interdependent system
  • Assessment aligned with performance objectives
  • Analysis of learners and performance context
  • Formative evaluation and revision

Best for

  • Skills and compliance programmes
  • Corporate and academic course design
  • Blended curricula with measurable outcomes
  • Train-the-trainer programmes

Considerations

  • Detailed and time-consuming; can feel heavy for short workshops.
  • Its behaviourist roots favour observable skills over attitudes, insight or collaborative sense-making.
  • Often criticised as linear in practice, even though revision loops back to all steps.

Attribution & sources

Developed by Walter Dick and Lou Carey, 1978

Primary source

Design a session with Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model

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