Component Display Theory (Dave Merrill)

Component display theory is one of the cognitive theories of instructional design introduced by Dave Merrill in the 1980s.

Component display theory analyzes content (in terms of facts, concepts, procedures and principles) and performance (in terms * Unordered List Itemof remember, use and find) as two categories of learning outcomes. The original intention of it's creator was to separate content from instructional strategy. Merrill also believed that different learning outcomes require different learning strategies, and that most efficiently designed instruction contains multiple forms of presented information.

Merril distinguishes between primary and secondary presentation forms. Primary presentation forms are:

expository presentation of a generality

expository presentation of instances

inquisitory generalities

inquisitory instances.

The term “expository” can here roughly be explained as “talk”, “inquisitory” as “ask”, “generality” as “general concept” and “instance” as “specific example”.

Merrills secondary presentation forms are prerequisites objectives, helps, mnemonics and feedback.

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