M. David Merrill
M. David Merrill (Marriner David Merrill) is an education researcher specializing in instructional design and technology. Personal life. Merrill was born on March 27, 1937. After completing high school, he was involved in missionary work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. He is married to Kathleen Merrill and together they have nine children and 39 grandchildren. He currently lives in Utah. </ref> Education and career. In 1961, Merrill earned a Bachelor of Arts in secondary education from Brigham Young University. He earned an MA and a  Ph.D from the University of Illinois in 1964. Merrill has been a faculty member at numerous universities during his extensive academic career: Research. Merrill's research has helped lead to the development of three important theories that underpin the discipline of Instructional Design and Technology today: The Component Display Theory, Instructional Transaction Theory and the First Principles of Instruction. Component Display Theory. The Component Display Theory (CDT) classifies learning into two dimensions: content and performance. Merrill developed a performance/content matrix which can be used to ascertain the levels of performance that is required for an area of content . The dimension of content consist of four areas: facts, procedures, concepts and principles; while the performance dimension consists of remembering, using and finding. The component display theory can be used to design instruction for any level of the cognitive domain and it provides a basis for lesson design in computer-based learning systems. In 1994, Merrill revised the original component display theory and the focus shifted towards a more macro perspective. The emphasis shifted from lesson towards general course structure and from forms to instructional transactions. First Principles of Instruction. The First Principles of Instruction is an instructional theory that  takes into consideration many instructional theories and models. It includes as set of inter-related principles – task/problem-centered, activation, demonstration, application and integration. These principles can help instructional designers develop instructional materials that can enhance the instructional and learning process. It is a task-centered instructional theory and as such emphasis is placed on the use of real-world problems or tasks in the instructional process. Instructional Transactional Theory. This theory was developed by Merrill along with Li and Jones and it was regarded as a second generation Instructional Design Theory. This theory was designed in an attempt to  extend Gagne’s condition of learning and Merrill’s component display theory to form a design which had the capacity for automated instruction. Hence, it can be described as computer-based instructional design. Instructional transactions are algorithms, patterns of learning interactions which have been designed to enable the learner to acquire certain kind of knowledge or skills. The instructional transactional theory has three components- Descriptive theory of knowledge, Descriptive theory of strategy and Prescriptive theory of instructional design. Publications. M. D. Merrill has published many books, edited many chapters in books, written numerous Journal articles etc. Below is a list  of some of his publications