Interview with John M. Keller on Motivational Design of Instruction

John M. Keller is one of the most recognized and respected scholars in the field of educational technology and instructional design. He has worked at the junction of psychology, education, and technology. Along with many other contributions, he has developed an instructional design theory that can be used successfully both with traditional and emerging technologies to enhance instructional processes. Much of his work has focused on motivational aspects of instruction, which is a special area of concern for many instructional designers who aim to provide truly satisfying educational experiences for all learners. This indeed makes his contributions very unique and worthwhile. Although he had to build a convincing argument about the appeal of instruction in the beginning years of the Motivational Design Theory, it appears that his efforts have turned out to be fruitful so that now everybody talks about motivation as a vital component of instruction. Professor Keller’s celebrated ARCS Model (which stands for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction) is well-known by instructional designers all around the world. Scholars in a large number of countries have investigated the applicability and effectiveness of this model, and they generally concluded that motivation should be an integral part any of effective learning system. It also appears that Keller’s model has recently been evolved to ARCS-V Model to include “Volition” as the fifth dimension. Considering the global influence of his contributions to the field of educational technology and instructional design, we decided to interview Professor Keller and share his views with colleagues. Similar to our previous interviews, we conducted this interview through online technologies of communication