Learning Objectives

Definition

An objective is a collection of words, symbols, and/or pictures describing one of your important intents as an instructional designer.  Three key components of an instructional objective are:

• Performance
• Conditions
• Criterion

Content

An objective will communicate your intent to the degree you describe:

• What the learner will be doing when demonstrating achievement of the objective
• The important conditions of the doing
• The criterion by which achievement will be judged

Process

To prepare a useful instructional objective, continue to modify a draft until these questions are answered:

• What do I want students to be able to do?
• What are the important conditions or constraints under which I want them to perform?
• How well must students perform for me to be satisfied?

Write a separate statement for each important outcome or intent; write as many as you need to communicate all your intents for a particular course.

In the absence of complete information for writing comprehensive instructional objectives, so instructional designers will collect information by doing some or all of the following:

• Task Listing – what collection of tasks make up a job or larger task?
• Task Analysis – why and how do we do the job/task competently?
• Skill Derivation – what would someone have to know and be able to do before being ready to practice the entire job/task?
• Objective Drafting – what performance, conditions and criterion are relevant to each task?
• Skill Hierarchy Drafting – are some skills prerequisites to others; what sequencing is needed to build the overall skill effectively?
• Curriculum Derivation – are there different ways to combine the objectives, or path learners through the objectives that account for varying expertise or experience levels?

Note: The beauty of investing in a comprehensive, well thought out list of learning objectives is that you are able to prove that what you are teaching is relevant to the fulfillment of an important need.

You also can give your written objectives to your target audience as confirmation of how well the education will meet the intended need.  You may find out that training is not necessary.  With the clarified objectives, the target audience may be able to do exactly what is expected of them because it is now clear.  Or they may clarify that it is not a skill deficiency that is preventing their performance, but some other barrier separate from training.

Testing Objectives

You cannot tell if an objective is important by just reading it.  One of the best tests is to compare it with the world around it.  If it would not matter to anyone or anything whether the objective was or was not accomplished, then it may be trivial.  If, on the other hand, some significant consequence would result from non-accomplishment of the objective, then it is not trivial.

Adapted from “Preparing Instructional Objectives” by Robert F. Mager, Third Edition, Copyright 1997, The Center for Effective Performance, Inc.  Available in the Educational Services library.

Resources

Bloom's Taxonomy (view via link or contact Joan Totka for a hard copy of the booklet)

Preparing Instructional Objectives by Robert F. Mager