Linking didactics and research in instructional material: A new structural model

How can research in instructional materials become more relevant for didactics and instruction planning? And how can general didactics reflect questions developed from a media perspective. These are the guiding questions of the article, which assumes a gap between general didactics and research and theory of instructional material. General didactics does not sufficiently incorporate a theory of media, and research and theory in instructional material do not recognise general didactics and apply very different conceptions of instruction in their studies – if at all. Through two approaches we argue for a new basic structure in didactics in order to bridge the gap when relevant conclusions for pragmatic didactics are in question. The first approach accounts for the place and status of media in the most known structural theories in general didactics. The second approach argues from another angle by identifying the very generically didactic situation and its structure. The proposed structure consists of the elements method, media and content and the six possible and qualitatively different relations between them. The structural elements, as substructures, are again roughly divided into three sub -elements each. With this theory of structure we want to stress the interrelations of the most important questions in the process of instr uction, sine qua non the didactic enterprise remains amputated. By the incorporation of media in the structure we contribute to a general didactics that is open to theory of instructional material. And we hope that the structural model can inspire the didactical concepts in
research and theory of instructional material.