{"id":18782,"date":"2022-06-18T13:48:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T09:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispringsolutions.com\/blog\/?p=18782"},"modified":"2026-03-11T15:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T11:59:17","slug":"instructional-design-principles-keys-to-authoring-elearning-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispringsolutions.com\/blog\/instructional-design-principles","title":{"rendered":"Instructional Design Principles: Keys to Authoring eLearning Content"},"content":{"rendered":"

Effective online training doesn\u2019t happen by accident; it\u2019s the end result of a planned, systematic development process. To create an eLearning course, it\u2019s not enough to be an expert in a specific topic. You also need to know about the principles of instructional design.<\/p>\n

In this article, we\u2019ll take Robert Gagn\u00e9\u2019s Nine Principles of Instruction as a basis and show how to apply them to the course authoring process.<\/p>\n

Robert Gagn\u00e9 and the Nine Principles of Instruction<\/h2>\n

Robert Gagn\u00e9 was an American educational psychologist who contributed greatly to the development of the science of instruction in the mid-twentieth century. He explored that there were some patterns in how people process the information and proposed a nine-step framework that detailed each element needed for effective learning. Gagn\u00e9\u2019s Nine Events (or Principles) of Instruction can serve as a checklist to help managers, trainers, and facilitators structure their training.<\/p>\n

All the Events can be divided into three phases:<\/p>\n

\"Nine<\/div>\n

Each step in the model aligns to a form of communication or activity that aids the learning process:<\/p>\n

\"Nine<\/div>\n

When each step is completed in turn, learners are much more likely to be engaged and to retain the information or skills that they\u2019re being taught.<\/p>\n

By using Gagn\u00e9\u2019s Nine Principles, you can structure your training session so that your people get the best possible learning experience. But this approach perfectly works not only in traditional classroom teaching, it can be also applied for eLearning.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how you can apply this framework to build an online course. For this, we\u2019ll use iSpring Suite<\/a>, an authoring toolkit that, in addition to slide-based courses, allows for creating quizzes, dialog simulations, screencasts<\/a>, video lectures, and interactive modules.<\/p>\n

Principle 1: Gain Attention (Reception)<\/h2>\n

A strong start is your opportunity to engage the learner and set the stage for the overall learning experience. Open your course with an introduction or activity that makes the learner disengage from other tasks and focus their attention on your training content.<\/p>\n

The most common ways to gain attention at the beginning of the course are:<\/p>\n