Instructional Objectives

October 3, 2007

Instructional Objectives
The bread and butter of instructional design
-goals vs. objectives
Goals - One main statement that is the overall goal - fuzzy - broad
the learners will be able to...
Objectives - describe in more detail than the goal - is based on the goal
1) the skill to be learned
2) the conditions
3) the criteria used to evaluate

-mastery
use the objectives to master the skills behind it
“mastery” depends upon the context - what the learner is required to do / the level
that is acceptable is up to the content, situation, instructional designer
mastery level is set in the objectives when you decide how to evaluate and what will
be learned

-observable or ???????
the easiest objectives to write are the ones that are easiest to observe
the hard ones are the subjective, less observable ones
we have to make inferences based on what we can observe
we have to decide if there is something we can observe that could allow us to infer
that learning took place
performance assessments may be more telling than paper/pencil

Learning Goal
Terminal Objective
Enabling Objective

Writing Good Learning Objectives:
ABCD
Audience
Behavior
Conditions - add enough description to make it clear what is expected
Degree - ex. speed, accuracy, quality
can use words, pictures, diagrams to help others know what you intend for learners
intended outcomes, NOT the process
specific & measurable
use concrete verbs
doing words vs. being words
when the performance stated in a n objective is covert, add an indicator