Definitions
The expression “Instructional Design”, often referred to in English literature by the abbreviation “ID”, appeared during the 1960s, when some American researchers began to develop systematic methods for planning and developing teaching (Basque, 2017). In line with this systems approach, Lapointe (1993) believes that a course or any training unit can be considered as a complex system involving the interaction of a set of components (targeted learning objectives, learner characteristics, teaching strategies, learning assessment strategies, media, etc.) and that these components need to be well articulated in order to ensure coherence. The term “learning system” has come to designate the object constructed during the instructional design process.
There are a great many French translations of 'Instructional Design', all of which are rather unsatisfactory: teaching plan (Lebrun & Berthelot, 1994), design of teaching sequences (Dessus, 1995), design of training systems (Brien, 1994), instructional design (Raynal & Rieunier, 1991), training engineering.
Gustafson and Branch (2007) define instructional design as follows « a system of procedures for developing education and training programs in a consistent and reliable fashion ».
Gustafson & Branch (2002) defines Instructional design or instructional design as a system that includes procedures to develop education and training programmes in a coherent and reliable manner. Furthermore, Şimşek (2013) defines instructional design as the development of functional learning systems based on a systematic approach in order to meet the requirements of a specific learner group.
Branch (2010), on the other hand, describes instructional design as a complex systemic process aimed at developing education and training programmes in a coherent and reliable way.
For most authors, these procedures concern all the phases in the lifecycle of a learning system, whether it is a course lasting several hours, a study programme, a shorter course or even lessons, modules or learning activities lasting a few hours.