Given equal results, instructional designers recommend the least expensive option. Or do they?
To my regret, I recently deleted this sentence from my soon-to-be published book chapter:
Instructional
designers are ethically bound, that if all learning outcomes are equal,
to recommend the least expensive, most environmentally sensitive, and
most socio-culturally aware method.
I was asked to provide references to back up this claim. Hmm…isn’t this considered a tenet of instructional design?
Actually, isn’t this a basic truth about all designers everywhere? Part of the job of a designer is to
A) know all of the options and
B) know the strengths and weaknesses of those options which naturally leads a designer to
C)
present the options to their client, highlighting the designer’s
judgment of BEST choice, even if that best choice is not what the client
is hoping for.