| This case study describes an instructional program developed with the U.S. Air Force to provide visual identification (VID) training to pilots. Although identifying aircraft is a crucial skill for fighter pilots, training has not kept pace with technology. The critical nature of this issue was demonstrated in 1994 when 26 people died in a friendly fire incident involving U.S. fighter pilots accidentally shooting down U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters. The resulting investigation revealed an urgent need for improved VID training.; Rapid prototyping models provided a speedy solution to these training needs. The final product, produced in CD-ROM format, incorporates 3D aircraft models, virtual 3D rotations, and compressed video sequences. This learning tool resembles a modern video game, allowing users to master difficult taxonomic classification and discrimination tasks in an engaging, interactive, entertaining, and effective way.; This dissertation reviews the design and development processes, constraints and parameters both intended and imposed, to meet the urgent instructional needs of the U.S. Air Force. In this study reality is placed aside theory to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a rapid prototyping model. Large-scale instructional design and development projects almost always exist within large bureaucracies with multiple factors vying for input and control, credit for success, and/or the absence of blame from failure. The larger the organization that initiates and controls such projects, the more difficult it can be to work decidedly, quickly and within the bounds of rational or established instructional design and development principles. This dissertation looks at the forces that bear on the development process. This dissertation documents the life cycle of a three-year instructional system intervention from the instructional need to the formative evaluation. As a case study, it shows with painful honesty the difficulties, failures, and successes of the processes and the products that result.*; *The dissertation includes a CD that is compound (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following applications: Pentium 100 mhz with 16 meg of memory; 4X CD-ROM; 16-bit SoundBlaster compatible sound card; MPEG-1 decoder; Super VGA video card (64K colors, 640 x 480 resolution); 300 MB free disk space; QuickTime 2.0.3 for Windows; Windows 2.11 or DOS 6.22. |
