The Settings > Health Care > Q&A with Professionals > Dr. Danielson

Jared A. Danielson, Ph.D.

As an instructional designer, what led you to pursue a career in the design of instruction for health care?

I basically fell into it. I was looking for a Ph.D. dissertation project that would be interesting and also pay an assistantship. One of my professors put me in contact with a faculty member at the Vet school who was wanting to create some educational software. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a tool that would help students improve their clinical problem solving skills, so I took that project on. It became quite successful, and, after a brief period as a Director of Instructional Technology, I was lured back to the project full time.

What areas of Instructional Design and Development do you feel that a student should concentrate in (e.g.: courses, internships, research projects) in order to be best prepared for an IDD career in health care?

I believe that my background in traditional instructional systems has been beneficial. While an understanding of educational theory and philosophy is certainly useful, medical education is very "results-oriented" by necessity. Therefore, it is useful to be able to think in terms of clearly articulated learning outcomes (even for fairly complex tasks such as problem solving), and specific strategies for teaching, and mechanisms for measuring those outcomes.

What is the most rewarding thing, for you, working as an instructional designer in health care?

There are many things that I find rewarding. I enjoy authentic design and research problems in a setting where solving those problems is generally valued. I enjoy interdisciplinary work, and find that I am constantly stretched and required to learn more. Also, my particular position allows me to conduct research as well as design; it is like working in a big research laboratory, surrounded by many more interesting questions than I could possibly find time to answer.

The University of South Alabama (USA) has masters (M.S.) and doctoral (Ph.D.) programs in Instructional Design and Development. What advice would you give to USA students wanting to pursue careers in the design of instruction for use in health care settings?

I would gain all the "nuts-and-bolts" skills you can. It will be beneficial to understand front end analysis, evaluation models, design strategies, interface design methods, etc. That, built on a good theoretical foundation should prepare you to work in a number of settings, including health care. Also, gaining the best understanding you can of research methods would be helpful, as well as the ability to search and interpret journal articles effectively. The health care environment is one where you can influence decision-making by appealing to empirical research, since there is a strong emphasis on this kind of research in health-care practice and legislation. You can help people see the benefit of applying the same principles of rigorous scrutiny to their teaching as they do to clinical or research practice in their own field.

Are there any drawbacks that an IDD student should be aware of preparing for a career in instructional design in health care?

I don't think there are any particular drawbacks that wouldn't be encountered in instructional design in any other field. If you are particularly squeamish, there might be elements of teaching hospitals that would bother you, depending on the particular project you are working on.

Are there any examples of instruction in health care that you could refer us to for inclusion in our web site and repository?

1. We have had success with the Diagnostic Pathfinder, the tool we developed for teaching problem solving. You can access a tour and video of the tool at http://www.birg.vetmed.iastate.edu/DP.html.

2. Problem based learning was largely piloted in medical education, and there are a number of informative articles on that topic in the medical education literature, that might be useful.