Instructional design/Learning objectives

Instructional Design

The crafting of well-formed learning objectives is becoming a lost art in instructional design circles. The time devoted to teaching the proper construction of learning objectives in bachelor- and masters-level courses of instruction is low, and numerous pundits in the field have dismissed the relative importance of learning objectives. There are many reasons why we should care about learning objectives.

Some of these are (Gronlund, 2000):

1. They provide a focus for the instruction
2. They provide participants with guidelines for learning
3. They provide a standard or focus for assessment and evaluation
4. They communicate instructor and course expectation to participants
5. They communicate the instructional intent of the training
6. They provide instructional designers and instructors with guidelines for selecting media, materials, and strategies

The fact is that well-formed learning objectives, like user requirements for software products or SMART objectives in management circles result in more robust and creative instructional solutions. For many training designers, the ability to craft well-formed learning objectives is a significant advantage when designing successful learning experiences

Learning Objective Structure

Robert Mager[1] describes three components to well written instructional objectives:

• Performance - The objective should describe what the participant should be able to do.
• Conditions - The objective should describe under what constraints the participant’s performance occurs.
• Criterion - The objective should determine at what point the performance is acceptable.

For example, the objective for this module of instruciton is:

Given a content scenario that reflects a cognitive skill, a cognitive domain verb job aid, and a writing objectives checklist(Conditions); the participant will be able to write a well-formed learning objective for that content.(Performance) The components of the objective must answer 90% of a crafting objectives checklist. (Criterion)

Learning to Write Well-Formed Objectives

• Conditions for Learning Objectives
• Performance for Learning Objectives
• Criterion for Learning Objectives
• Writing a Well-Formed Learning Objective

References

Gronlund, N.E. (2000). How to write and use instructional objectives, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill

Mager, R.F. (1997). Preparing Instructional Objectives, 3rd ed. Atlanta, Georgia: The Center for Effective Performance, Inc.

For Further Study:

Why Write Objectives

ABCD Objective Format

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