Multiple Paths to Instructional Design Careers

Just a quick follow-up post to the previous discussion on instructional design degrees. Cammy Bean has posted the results from her survey of instructional design degrees, which I mentioned in a previous post. Very few people who responded actually have advanced degrees in instructional design. Several people had Masters of Education, and a number had degrees in educational or instructional technology. Overall, Cammy found a lot of liberal arts degrees; English was certainly a popular major in the survey.

A big part of what this tells me is that people can find their way into instructional design careers through a number of ways. That’s been my personal experience and what I’ve seen in teams I’ve worked with, but this reinforces that.

Cammy did have a few people (3 of 18) respond that they had been denied work because of the lack of an instructional design degree, so it obviously has affected some people.

Check out Cammy’s results if you want to see more.

Update: Read all my posts about Instructional Design Careers here.

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3 thoughts on “Multiple Paths to Instructional Design Careers

  1. The collaborative features on all of those online web applications are really what makes them beneficial; it just makes so much of a difference in the development process.

    The job trends discussion in your course sounds interesting; I wish I had been a fly on the wall to hear everyone’s perspectives. ID does seem to be a field where people from many different backgrounds can be successful. Maybe that’s because IDs need such a wide range of skills that what we do overlaps with multiple different areas.

  2. Thanks for the advice on the online programs, I’ll definitely check them out and pass on the info to my class. We liked the collaborative ability of the Google Docs program as well as its simultaneous presentation ability.

    We are all currently involved an Intro to Instructional Design and Development class for a Masters in Instructional Technology. We’ve been researching the trends within the field. This week’s readings were on how to secure a job in ID, what types of jobs are available, alternate routes for those not officially in the major, etc.

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