Exploring Instructional Designers' Role Shifting and Challenges in Higher Education throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted and challenged the higher education (HEd) community in a variety of ways. Current research has focused more on finding the impacts of COVID-19 on institutions, faculty, and students, but has placed less emphasis on the challenges of instructional designers (IDers). This study used Street-Level Bureaucracy (SLB) theory and narrative research as its theoretical and methodological framework to explore whether IDers experienced any shifts or changes in their work roles within HEd and encountered any challenges at work before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this study aimed to identify the strategies that IDers adopted to address the sudden instructional design (ID) needs arising from the impacts of COVID-19. I used the snowball sampling method and emails sent through listservs to recruit potential participants. Selected participants completed a pre-interview survey and one online interview. I coded and analyzed survey and interview data to report on findings.