IAM & PNA: from Instructional Design to a Usability Test for Learning. Understanding, Designing and Analysing the Technology Appropriation Process

Abstract

Over the last few decades and concomitantly with the widespread dissemination of ICTs in learning contexts, the concept of Instructional Design has assumed an important place. Nonetheless, the existing literature lacks adequate methods to access the user’s learning process and to make it explicit. For that reason, in this paper, we propose the IAM (Instrumental Adaptation Model) and its operationalization in the PNA (Process Network Analysis). This is a new usability test that specifically applies to learning situations, and aims to better identify the appropriation process of each category of users. The aim of the contribution is to present the PNA to the community with the opportunity to test it and confirm with empirical data its pertinence to learning. By doing this, we hope to give some solutions to problems connected with the use of ICTs for learning.