Recent evidence shows that the context in which instruction takes place is often given insufficient thought during the design of education or training courses. This study is divided into four parts. Part 1 looks at the concept of environmental analysis, Part 2 discusses the main factors of the learning environment, Part 3 examines the factors of the support environment and Part 4 analyzes the design environment. Issues discussed in detail include an assessment of how important the physical environment is to the success or failure of a course, the roles of the instructor and learner, what support media are available and how they can be used to help the instruction process, and how to gather and analyze information on the learning environment.