First Principles of Instruction

First Principles of InstructionM. David MerrillFor the past several years the author has beenreviewing instructional design theories in anattempt to identify prescriptive Principles thatare common to the various theories. This paperis a preliminary report of the Principles thathave been identified by this search. Five firstprinciples are elaborated: (a) Learning ispromoted when learners are engaged insolving real-world problems. (b) Learning ispromoted when existing knowledge isactivated as a foundation for new knowledge.(c) Learning is promoted when new knowledgeis demonstrated to the learner. (d) Learning ispromoted when new knowledge is applied bythe learner. (e) Learning is promoted whennew knowledge is integrated into the learner sworld. Representative instructional designtheories are briefly examined to illustrate howthey include these Principles . These include:Star Legacy by the Vanderbilt LearningTechnology Center, 4-Mat by McCarthy,instructional episodes by Andre, multipleapproaches to understanding by Gardner,collaborative problem solving by Nelson,constructivist learning environments byJonassen, and learning by doing by Schank.

theory may specify both principles and practices for implementing these principles. For some ex-amples in Reigeluth (1999) a program is specified but the underlying first principles are

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