Master of Arts (Instructional Design & Technology)

This thesis presents a professional development action plan or framework for Instructional Designers working as external consultants for corporate companies. It also contains justifications and data on why such an action plan is necessary for these professionals. The thesis recommends flexible learning as an approach to help practising Instructional Designers to continuously and proactively learn about new trends, approaches, technologies and theories in the field of Instructional Design as well as other related fields. Only well-informed Instructional Designers are able to design relevant and useful instructional material to help their clients to stay relevant and competitive in the global scene, thereby keep jobs for their employees. Instructional Designers must be well-equipped with current knowledge, skills and attitudes to ensure that their instructional materials help employees to stay employable as long as possible within given shorter and limited time and resources.

With Singapore's trend towards globalisation and with the organisation's (the institution which I am currently working for) initiative to extend its education and training regionally and internationally for professional lifelong learning, the institution now plays an active role as a member of the international community to provide continuing education and training for adult professionals from overseas. With such new developments in the educational and training scene, there is an impetus to change in the traditional classroom. The training classroom has become a more international learning environment, which comprises adult participants with different cultural background and different individual personalities.

To address such new challenges for instructors and instructional designers, this dissertation discusses the role of individual differences and cultural differences and classroom dynamics in the design of instruction for adult learners. Through the design of an observational study on these cross-cultural adult learners in the classroom, revelations were made on whether their cultural differences and/or individual differences had contributed to constructive classroom dynamics that enhances learning and interaction. Such revelations and findings would provide important reflections and knowledge to the instructors and instructional designers to devise more effective training approaches that would enhance the teaching and learning.

In Summary, Chapter One provides an overview of the purpose and rationale for this dissertation. Research on literature reviews on adult learning issues, which are the foundation for further discussion, are presented in Chapter Two. Chapter Three describes the methodology, the design and the implementation of the observational study. Chapter Four reports on the findings and the data collected. Chapter Five provides the data implications and concluded the Paper with further recommendations that would further enhance this study.