Learning Objectives

Learning Objective Definition

Learning objectives are also called instructional objectives or performance objectives. They are the statements that describe what students will be able to do once they successfully complete a unit of instruction (Dick, Carey, and Carey, p. 125). A good learning objective is specific, measurable, and clearly stated.

The Importance of Learning Objectives

Learning objectives are a critical component of instruction. They have two important functions:

1. Provide course developers guidance on selecting suitable:
   • instructional materials;
   • teaching methods, including learning activities and use of technology;
   • assessment methods.
2. Help students focus on what they are expected to learn, and understand how they will be assessed.

This is why we always emphasize that learning objectives should be specific and measurable. The example below demonstrates good alignment of learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments. It shows us how a clearly stated learning objective can help an instructor create appropriate learning activities to help students acquire the desired skills and select good assessment tools to evaluate students' achievement.

Example

Please take a look at the example below which includes a well-written learning objective, a learning activity and an assessment. They are all in alignment.

In order to help students achieve the learning objective, the teaching method the instructor selected is to have students participate in a group discussion activity. This group discussion activity requires students to apply what they have learned to analyze if countertrade is good for the selected countries. Students have to know countertrade, the advantages and disadvantages of countertrade, and the economic situation of the assigned countries in order to assess if countertrade is good for the selected countries. This discussion activity gives students the opportunity to review and apply what they have learned to solve a real world problem and receive feedback from each other. It can not only teach students' critical thinking skills but also have them practice the desired skills. The essay question is used to evaluate students' mastery of the learning objective. Students should be able to answer this question after they complete the discussion activity since the essay question is similar to the discussion question.

Additional Resources

Articulate Your Learning Objectives by Carnegie Mellon University clearly explains why we need to articulate our learning objectives and how to articulate our learning objectives. In addition, it also provides a list of action verbs and samples of learning objectives from different disciplines.

Writing Learning Objectives: Beginning With The End In Mind: This presentation clearly explained the differences between learning objectives and learning goals, the three components of an ideal learning objective, and how to write specific and measurable learning objectives.

Self-Check Quiz 

The Three Components of a Useful Learning Objective

Mager (1997) stated a useful learning objective should include the following three major components;

• Performance – What are students expected to do?
• Conditions – Under which conditions should the students perform?
• Criteria – How well do students have to perform in order to satisfy the requirements?

Example

Take a look at this learning objective. Hover your mouse over the sentence to find the three components in this learning objective.

This learning objective includes all of the three major components. It is specific, measurable, and clearly stated. We can easily tell what students are expected to do and what should be taught based on this learning objective. This lesson will teach students how to use the College's online library databases to find books and articles they need. To teach students this skill, we should demonstrate how to use the databases that are available through the College's online library to find reliable resources. When it is time to assess students' mastery of this learning objective, we can give students a topic and have them find at least one book and one scholarly article related to the given topic via the College's online library databases.

Additional Resources

Mager's tips on instructional objectives found on Georgia State University is excerpted from the second edition of Robert F. Mager's most popular book, Preparing Instructional Objectives. In this book, Mager carefully explained the three major components, identified and illustrated some common pitfalls when writing learning objectives.

Self-Check Quiz

Performance

Learning objectives are student-centered. They describe the desired student performance.

Student Performance vs. Instructor Performance

One of the common mistakes made when writing learning objectives is to describe what instructors want to teach instead of what students are expected to be able to do upon their completion of a unit of instruction. It is important to differentiate between student performance and instructor performance.

Example

Let's take a look at the statement below.

This statement describes what instructors will do. It tells us the topics that should be included in the instruction but it doesn't tell us what students are expected to be able to do. To revise this statement to a learning objective, we should rewrite it from student perspective. It will read:

Bloom's Taxonomy and Measurable Verbs

Bloom developed six categories of intellectual skills in the cognitive domain in 1956. A group of cognitive psychologists led by Lorin Anderson updated the taxonomy during the 1990's. You can find the six categories in the pyramids below, starting from the simplest behavior at the bottom to the most complex at the top. That is, the bottom ones must normally be mastered before the higher ones can take place. In order to teach students higher order thinking skills, basic knowledge should be provided first. Before we ask students to apply, analyze, evaluate, and extend what they are learning, we should make sure students can clarify their understanding and practice recall. Rewardingly, critical thinking exercises can deepen students' understanding and help them recall what they have learned.  

Measurable verbs are the verbs that describe the actions that can be observed. In other words, measurable verbs refer to specific activities that we can observe a student doing.

Most of our courses fall into the cognitive domain. We should refer to Bloom's Taxonomy and select measurable verbs when we describe student performance, which can help us focus on specific cognitive processes and use correct measurable verbs. Bloom's Taxonomy and Verbs found on Paul D. Camp Community College's web site is a good resource for us to refer to when preparing our learning objectives. It associates different measurable verbs with each level of the taxonomy. 

Example 1

"Learn" is not a measurable verb. We can observe a student reading an article or searching for information on the Internet, but we can't observe a student learning something. It is not possible for us to decide on the cognitive development process that the verb "learn" refers to. Thus, there is no way for us to come up with an assessment tool to evaluate students' mastery of this learning objective.

To make this learning objective a useful learning objective, we can revise it to,

Example 2

This learning objective uses measurable verbs. We can observe a student listing the characteristics and explaining things. However, "List" and "explain" refer to two different levels of learning. Listing the four characteristics can measure if students can recall the information. It refers to the Knowledge level on Bloom's Taxonomy. "Explain" requires students to understand the ideas and the concepts. It refers to the Comprehension level on Bloom's Taxonomy, which is higher than Knowledge level. Like we said, a learning objective should focus on specific cognitive process and use a simple sentence. To make this learning objective clearer, we should break down the task. It is OK to use two or even three sentences to adequately describe a learning objective.

So this learning objective can be revised to,

Learning Objectives vs. Learning Activities

A learning objective describes a learned capability which is not a one-time event. When writing learning objectives for a unit of instruction, we usually start from the sentence "upon your successful completion of this lesson, you will be able to". Learning activities are the learning experiences that provide students the opportunity to practice the desired skills. They are different.

Example

This statement describes a learning activity that can help students better understand the major theories of the cause of glaciation, so the desired skill that students are expected to acquire is to understand the major theories of the cause of glaciation. So the learning objective should be:

Remember the following principles when describing student performance:

Additional Resources

A Model of Learning Objectives was developed based on the revised Bloom's Taxonomy by the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching of Iowa State University. It is a good visual presentation that visualizes the relationship between the levels of the cognitive development process and the knowledge dimensions. You may also want to refer to Bloom's Taxonomy by Carnegie Mellon University which briefly explains the knowledge dimensions and the levels of the cognitive development process.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Designing Activities tutorial developed by Colorado Community Colleges Online describes a variety of activities at each level of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy. You may refer to it when writing your own learning objectives. It can help you align your activity with a specific level of cognitive development process.

If you want to know more about affective domain and psychomotor domain, you may refer to Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. This is a good review of different taxonomies in the three different learning domains, cognitive domain, affective domain, and psychomotor domain. 

Self-Check Quiz

Conditions

Everything happens within a context, but we have to be very careful when adding conditions to our learning objectives. Conditions are not instructions. We should only describe the conditions that will make significant difference to the nature of student performance. They can be anything that will be provided to students or things that students are not allowed to use when students perform the desired skills.

Remember the following three principles when adding conditions to your learning objectives:

Example

Let's take a look at the statement below.

Learning objectives describe what students should be able to do once they successfully complete a unit of instruction. Should the aid of instructor impact students' behavior? The desired skill described in this statement is that students will be able to identify strategies to document and conserve historic and cultural resources. If students can't identify the strategies without the aid of their instructor, have the students obtained the desired skill? According to the third principle above, we don't have to include conditions in a learning objective if there is no conditions that will affect the nature of the student performance. This statement can be converted to a learning objective that will read

Self-Check Quiz

Criteria

Criteria in learning objectives tell students how well they have to perform in order to achieve the learning objectives. Usually we expect students to be able to perform the desired skills with 100% accuracy. This criterion doesn't have to be included in each learning objective. If there are no other special criteria, don't include criteria in learning objectives. Remember do not include criteria that have nothing to do with the performance.

Remember the following three principles when adding criteria to your learning objectives:

Example

The number of words can be the criterion that we use to evaluate students but it won't affect the nature of how well students described how to maintain common electrical test equipment. According to the three principles for adding criteria, this learning objective can be revised to

Self-Check Quiz

Wrap-Up - Strategies for Success

The three important components of a learning objective are performance, conditions, and criteria. When preparing your learning objectives, please focus on describing student performance. Only include the significant conditions that can affect the nature of student performance and the criteria that can tell students how well the desired skills should be performed. It is acceptable if your learning objectives only describe student performance as long as they focus on specific cognitive processes and are measurable and clearly stated.

Keep the following strategies in your mind when writing learning objectives:

The following example demonstrates how to revise a statement to make it a good learning objective. You will also see how we start from describing student performance and then add criteria and conditions to make the statement a useful learning objective.

Example

Learning objectives are presented to students at the very beginning of a lesson when students don't know anything about the lesson. We should not include in the learning objective any reference to the class discussions. There is no way that students can know anything about the class discussions at this moment. Another problem with this statement is that the number of words can't guarantee that students will explain things well. It is an instructional method that can help students better understand their instructor's expectation, but it is not the criterion that can tell an instructor how well students have explained the topic.

To make the statement a learning objective, we can simply say

If we want to add criteria to the learning objective, we can say

If we want to add conditions to the learning objective, we can say

References

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2005). The systematic design of instruction (6th ed.). Pearson: Allyn and Bacon.

Mager, R. F. (1997). Preparing Instructional Objectives (3rd ed.). Atlanta, Georgia: CEP Press.

Clark, D.R. (2004). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html.

Colorado Community Colleges Online. (2014). Bloom's Taxonomy - Designing Activities. Retrieved from http://media.ccconline.org/ccco/FacWiki/TeachingResources/Blooms_Taxonomy_Tutorials/BloomsTaxonomy_Activities_Tabs/BloomsTaxonomyActivitiesTabs.swf.

Eberly Center: Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation of Carnegie Mellon University. Articulate Your Learning Objectives. Retrieved from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/learningobjectives.html.

Heer, R. (2011). A Model of Learning Objectives based on A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching of Iowa State University. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html.

IT 3210: Teachers & Technology offered by Department of Middle/Secondary Education & Instructional Technology of Georgia State University. (1999). Mager's Tips on Instructional Objectives. Retrieved from http://www2.gsu.edu/~mstmbs/CrsTools/Magerobj.html.

Office of Faculty Development of the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine of Ohio University. Writing Learning Objectives: Beginning with the End in Mind. Retrieved from http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/fd/writingobjectives.pdf.