Information Processing Analysis
David H. Jonassen, Martin Tessmer, Wallace H. Hannum · 1998
Information-processing analysis (IPA) can reveal task-related content, objectives, or skills. It can also generate an instruction or training sequence, or be used by students as a learning tool. IP A is used to reveal the cognitive operations and decisions necessary to accomplish a task, to outline a competent executor&s;s thought processes. Whereas procedural analysis (see Chapter 5) identifies overt behaviors, information processing analysis is used to identify covert, mental processes required to perform a task. Thus, the resultant performance algorithm is a specification of the subtasks necessary to master the task, which can then be targeted as the objectives and subobjectives of task instruction. The analysis may also be used to describe the sequence of cognitive operations accomplished to perform a task or problem, and thus reveal cognitive skills and subskills for task instruction.