Instructional design in the context of "Cognitive load"

Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.

Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology. It is also informed by neuroscience. Educational psychology in turn informs a wide range of specialties within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education, classroom management, and student motivation. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to cognitive science and the learning theory. In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed within faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack of representation of educational psychology content in introductory psychology textbooks.

Training and development involves improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as being related to immediate changes in effectiveness via organized instruction, while development is related to the progress of longer-term organizational and employee goals. While training and development technically have differing definitions, the terms are often used interchangeably. Training and development have historically been topics within adult education and applied psychology, but have within the last two decades become closely associated with human resources management, talent management, human resources development, instructional design, human factors, and knowledge management.

Skills training has taken on varying organizational forms across industrialized economies. Germany has an elaborate vocational training system, whereas the United States and the United Kingdom are considered to generally have weak ones.

The ADDIE model is a framework used in instructional design and training and development to guide the creation of learning experiences and performance support tools. The acronym stands for five phases—Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.

Developed in the 1970s as part of the U.S. military’s Interservice Procedures for Instructional Systems Development (IPISD), the model became a general term for systematic instructional design approaches rather than a single proprietary method.