Examining competencies for the instructional design professional: An exploratory job announcement analysis

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine core professional competencies for instructional designers through a job announcement analysis involving both qualitative and quantitative produces used on a qualitative data source. Using a conceptual framework as a guide, we extracted and examined a total of N = 1030 unique job announcements obtained from September to October 2019 from three popular job search databases: Glassdoor.com, Indeed.com and Monster.com. Using a systematic content analysis coding procedure, we coded the absence or presence of N = 185 competencies organized into knowledge, skill and ability statements (80 knowledge statements, 43 skill statements and 62 ability statements). These data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis models for dichotomously scored data, resulting in meaningful factors that are representative of these data. Our results highlight critical competencies for professional instructional designers in each domain, including soft skills , the ability to work with diverse stakeholders and more technical competencies like knowledge of video and audio authoring . The study provides a current snapshot of the knowledge, skills and abilities of instructional designers across settings. We provide a comprehensive discussion of our limitations, findings related to similar works, implications and suggestions for future research.