From image to reality: Instructional metaphors

Abstract

By analogy, an analogy is an optical device which converts a reality into a perceivable image. The crucial point is that how appropriate the analogy is to extract hidden information. The validity of an analogy depends not only a straightforward resemblance of only one upfront attribute between the authentic and the analogue but the further implications of the representation. The study of instructions must be made two viewpoints-that of organizational and that of operational. Organizational description of instructional systems as isolated from their environment avoids the problems of interaction with other instructional events. Operational description of instructions emphasizes the interactivity of instructional affairs with their environment. The split of the topic into organizational and operational is of course not absolute. I hope to have established a catalogue of examples for the structure and function of instruction abstracted from any empirical field and science. It will remain for further research to complete this catalogue if found useful. Some hypothetical but plausible even commonplace instructional examples have been given for the description of structure and explanation of functions. This essay has proven to be a merely conceptual one. It does not study empirical facts about instructional practices. All conditions examined are ideal conditions in the sense that they consist of abstractions existing as perfect logical possibilities. I hope that the essay as a whole can then serve as a catalog for the examination of actual instructions in the field of educational design and assessment. © 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.