Testing instructions

Instructions need to be carefully tested. It is easy for the writer, who already knows how to do the task, to forget steps or to assume knowledge and experience that the reader may not have. Testing the instructions with someone who knows nothing about the task will quickly show you where instructions are incomplete or unclear.

Here are some kinds of instructions that you should test:

• Instructions within a primer
• Teachers' guides
• Instructions in a self-taught primer
• Instructions with teaching aids and any other educational materials
• Instructions in "how-to" materials

Here are some objectives of testing instructions:

• To enable a user to easily follow the instructions and accomplish the intended task with a minimum of help
• To provide instructions that are culturally appropriate and helpful

Here are some prerequisites for testing instructions:

• You need to edit the instructions carefully.

  See:	Editing literacy materials

• You need to prepare draft copies of the instructions.

• You need to review the modules associated with Designing a test for literacy materials

• Give the instructions to the kind of person for whom they were written. Examples
  • Give a teachers' guide to teachers.
  • Give a self-taught primer to someone who is learning to read.
  • Give How to make a silk-screen printer to someone who wants to make one.
• Have the person or persons read over the instructions and ask if they have any questions or comments about them.
• Ask specific questions about the instructions to see if they understand what is written.
• Whenever possible, have them follow the instructions to accomplish the intended task.
• Observe them as they follow the instructions.
• Write down relevant comments, suggestions, and questions that they have during the process.
• Note problems that they encounter during the process.
• Evaluate the results of the testing and make changes in the instructions or the testing procedures as necessary.

• Task module: Testing instructions
• In task module: Testing various kinds of literacy materials
• In task module: Testing and evaluating literacy materials, by Trudy K. Stewart (contributor) and Leah B. Walter (compiler)
• In task module: Evaluating components of a program, by Julia R. Van Dyken (contributor) and Stephen L. Walter (contributor)
• In task module: Implementing a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler)
• In modular book: Implement a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler) and Leah B. Walter (compiler)
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 22 October 1999

© 1999 SIL International