4 MAJOR SUCCESS CRITERIA OF INSTRUCTIONAL-SYSTEMS

Previous writers have cited more than a hundred criteria that characte rize a successful instructional system. Since no designer of instructi onal systems can bear so many items in mind simultaneously, this paper proposes a concise set of four major success criteria that subsume th em all. These are: technical efficiency - whether waste could be elimi nated from the instructional processes economic efficiency - whether c ost could be decreased by altering the mix of inputs user effectivenes s - whether value could be increased by altering the mix of outputs ma rginal effectiveness - whether small increases in cost yield large inc reases in value. Overall system success depends on the algebraic produ ct of the four criteria. This multiplier effect implies that overall s uccess is strongly affected even by small imperfections in any one of the criteria. Therefore instructional designers should address all the major criteria in order to develop optimal instructional systems.