Educational Objectives

Ross Woods

Objectives are one of the main ways to describe what educators want students to learn. The actual idea of objectives is not at stake; almost all teachers conceive of objectives and most use them to describe what they want students to learn. The main question is whether goals should be specific and perhaps behavioral, or whether they may be general or vague. The issue is important because the literature on behavioral objectives has greatly influenced the nontraditional education movement. Unfortunately, the discussion is mostly a well-worn path with far more debate than consensus.

A good approach to objectives has a great deal to offer accreditation. A satisfactory role for objectives gets around weaknesses in the product idea of quality and accreditation, such as filtering objectives through a necessarily vague statement of institutional mission. Admittedly, a list of objectives can only represent program realities when it is tempered by considerable program feedback about how they were interpreted, how well they represented the real aims, how well they worked, and what changes were made during implementation. (Cf. Cronbach, 1980:5) This makes the information base far more complex than a simple list of objectives.

Even with such encumbrances, however, a list of well-written objectives is the best way to show what type and level of learning students have achieved. It also goes a long way to demonstrating program validity beyond reasonable doubt, and to being accountable for learning. When program objectives give an idea of content, they are the best way to find out what a particular degree really means, and the fewer the objectives, the easier it becomes. The simplest possible case is the graduate research institute degree.

The idea of objectives makes the same worthy assumptions as the product view of quality. It assumes purposiveness, and that educators can articulate purposes. The idea of effability is central to its epistemology, especially in the relationship between language and referent. It also assumes that purposes are to be realized, and this need not necessarily imply behaviorism. (Cf. Kelly, 1977:25)

By incorporating cognitivism, objectives can still use the best lessons of behaviorism without becoming victims to its excesses. For example, behavioral indicators in objectives are still very helpful, although one should not over-rely on them. Objectives are a good servant but a poor master (cf. Print, 1987:26).

Objectives are a meeting point between content and functionality, because they need to represent both the knowledge learned and its purposes. That is, objectives need to be concrete enough for accreditors to use without compromising the real vagaries of what students need to learn. The teleological nature of objectives, however, tends to favor the interests of functionality rather than content. This chapter also delimits the valid range of options, emphasizing a proposed "ideal" option.

The obvious options are the soft and the hard. On the hard side, the very extensive literature on behavioral objectives has seemed monolithic. This is completely deceptive, because the philosophy of objectives fits into two distinct categories; the very hard and the middle road. In practice, schools can blend the two types and learn to live with the contradictions, but this is quite unnecessary.

The Soft End of the Spectrum

Although attitudes are changing, traditional higher education, as is well known, has often been antagonistic toward the philosophy of behavioral objectives, mainly because it identifies them with simple knowledge. This end of the spectrum clearly emphasizes content, conceived as complex knowledge. Educational goals are either very general or ontological (specifying only areas of knowledge for students to master). Proponents hold that educational aims are very complex or even ineffable. This has brought about the not irresponsible view that only experts really know what they aim to achieve. Consequently, aims are general, perhaps even vague, and they rely on tacit knowledge, a consensus view of quality, and a rather soft epistemology.

Ironically enough, this approach does not help teachers to impart simple information to students, and in its extreme forms, knowledge becomes ethereal and intangible. In the extreme, nobody can accurately explain what he is really trying to do. If this view has the misfortune to inherit the weaknesses of complex knowledge, it at least has the fortune to also inherit all its strengths.

Interactive models of teaching are common, and they are considerably defined as much by a rejection of objectives as by an emphasis on learning processes.

Stenhouse (n.d.) is a good example of an epistemologically soft view. He rejects the idea of performance objectives, and suggests that a process model of curriculum is most appropriate if students are to understand the deep structures of the knowledge they are taught. He suggests that most of the important aspects of education relate to the process of learning rather than to products, for example, the abilities to formulate questions, to search for information that will produce answers, and to discuss and reflect. (Based on Hanly et al., 1970:5) Kelly is another example of similar school of thought (1977; esp. pp. 40, 44), as are almost all humanists.

Atomistic Objectives: The Hard View

This approach teaches that it is always preferable to articulate important learning goals, and to express everything that students should learn in behavioral objectives. Unfortunately, this normally means compiling long lists of small objectives, hence the name "atomistic objectives." Almost by definition, it only teaches simple knowledge. It is epistemologically very hard in that it tends to equate a linguistic expression (the objective) with learning (its referent).

These objectives aim to predetermine every detail of what students will learn, and almost all correct answers. In PI, this means that guide answers clearly either affirm a correct student response or reveal a definite error. Evaluation is similarly objective. In keeping with its determinist viewpoint, every detail of the teaching must aim exclusively at the prescribed objectives.

This view identifies evaluation activities with understanding and knowledge, holding that the latter is meaningless without a behavioral manifestation, even if it is an artificially contrived evaluation exercise.

Atomistic objectives typically specify only the product (the final behavior), and avoid mentioning the process (the way students should learn). Teaching is thus completely distinct from evaluation, and teachers frequently stop teaching to evaluate students on each and every objective.

Tyler's view of curriculum (1949) and Mager's small book (1962; cf. Popham, 1975:47), itself written in PI, have been the most influential statements on behavioral objectives, but neither were clearly atomists. Others have been more extreme in their advocacy of atomism. In Texas, for example, a teacher of first grade with twenty-five students was responsible to ensure the achievement of 150 objectives per student, resulting in over 3,500 objectives through the year (Ferrarra, 1987:17).

Strengths. Atomistic objectives have some important strengths, and are preferable, even necessary, for some types of learning. It would be unfortunate if their most useful lessons were forgotten during a change to a better approach. They have a strong base in empirical studies and they are still the best way to define particular knowledge and skills for use in measurement. They are useful in evaluating learning done apart from a study program--students who learned exactly the same information elsewhere should still be able to pass examinations which are based on well-written objectives.

In a variation called "direct teaching", a dominant classroom teacher teaches behavioristically in small steps. According to Ornstein, students taught this way consistently perform better in standardized tests than those taught in more interactive, humanistic styles. (1987:90f q.v.)

Well-written atomistic objectives are also still the best way to teach applied skills, and are often well-suited to teaching the poorly educated. They are also very good for complex work that still can use predetermined answers (e.g. Markle, 1969). No accreditor could justifiably call this standard of learning into question.

Weaknesses. Almost all curriculum texts contain long lists of faults of behavioral objectives, although almost all only apply to those which tend to atomism. At the very least, the lists of problems show that accreditors cannot oblige schools to use them. The following incomplete list includes only those weaknesses mostly directly related to accreditation:

Some weakness relate to the teaching-learning process. First, too many objectives are poorly written yet so much depends on them, especially in PI. It is not that PI lacks the potential to teach extremely well, but that it so seldom does so. Writers and teachers can too easily consider things not worth learning if they do not know how to write atomistic objectives for them. Second, objectives dictate exactly what should happen in learning process but easily create boring instruction which centers on the objectives as much on the students. Third, Popham, reflecting back on the "heyday of behavioral objectives", notes that teachers with myriads of tiny objectives tend to ignore them all. A very small number of essential skills which subsume other skills is by far preferable. (Popham, 1987:680) Fourth, atomistic objectives are impossible to use for some kinds of learning because they predetermine answers. Examples include systematic reflection on experience, learning that starts with a problem to be solved, or learning where the student must take the initiative in identifying a problem. (Boud, 1986:240.) Fifth, some kinds of objectives not only predetermine what the student will learn, but also limit the amount of teaching available. This impedes the natural progress of students who can study more than that which is deliberately taught. (Also Brady, 1983:83)

The use of predetermined answers also creates problems. It subscribes to a fairly rigid form of behaviorism and as such easily becomes indoctrination. Every "correct" answer is predetermined and students may not think creatively. It assumes that expert author-teachers are infallible, although they really only have well-informed opinions and often disagree with each other. The approach can only work for basic information where experts can form a consensus, or when each alternative expert view is equally valid.

Even its concept of quality is suspect. Atomism is closely akin to metricism, because evaluation based on atomistic objectives tends to reduce knowledge to numbers. (Cf. Sadler, 1987:198)

Atomistic objectives lack several important strengths of cognitivism. For example, some students can satisfactorily perform the evaluation activities without feeling confident that they understand the material. In other cases, they can successfully perform procedural skills without understanding nor conceptualizing what they are really doing. Comprehension is valuable apart from skills; behavioristic learning theory is not always adequate. Not only that, students do not really understand objectives until they have learnt how to achieve them. The issue, however, is not so much that students need a detailed knowledge of the objective before starting, but that they are fully aware of what they are trying to do. (Houle: 1978:172)

Next, objectives have difficulties fulfilling one of their most basic expectations. One defining element of objectives is that objectives should include (or at least imply) criteria to distinguish between correct and incorrect answers. However, they can seldom, if ever, be completely explicit. Many objectives require students to differentiate between examples and non-examples, but the objectives cannot describe how fine the differentiation should be. Usually field-testing, not objectives, shows what is workable. Mostly this is no more than a small chink in theoretical armor, but it means that objectives have a built-in devaluation system. In practice, it becomes easy to justify poor learning because the same objectives function in exactly the same way for very easy differentiations. Moreover, some subjects are so complex that atomistic objectives cannot realistically mention every criteria of correctness. For example, it takes whole books to explain what makes a satisfactory essay. Staff would normally be justified in failing a paper that was badly substandard in only one vital aspect of content, logic, methodology, structure, presentation, or referencing. Teachers cannot predetermine what students will write, and teachers cannot even predetermine the rules for the "deep" features (ideas, organization, choice of words and style). (E.g. Sadler 1987:199f; Philips, 1982)

Atomistic objectives also presuppose a flawed epistemology. By limiting knowledge to that which is simple, atomism discourages higher level thinking skills (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Knowledge is static, sometimes even sterile; its rigid structures discourage students from interrelating ideas fluidly and dynamically. In practice, writing objectives for higher order thinking skill almost never occurs. (Popham, 1987:685; Barnett, 1988b:21) Accreditation agencies could justifiably withhold accreditation to degree programs if students are seriously deficient in complex thinking skills. Bracey gives a most lucid example of atomism and simple knowledge. College students copied short answers from texts to answer study guide questions, then took multiple-choice tests which also presumed that students' learnings were extremely fragmented. (1987:684, based on Richardson, 1985)

Ferrarra's criticism of atomistic, behavioristic objectives is particularly cutting, adding to the already extensive lists of problems with objectives. Her complaint is that preoccupation with objectives makes classroom teaching almost impossible. For example, a lesson based on an objective seldom fully achieves the objective because students need practice and review. Similarly, the sum of the skills is not the mastery of the subject (1987:16); a finite number of simple, static particulars does not make a complex, dynamic whole. In much the same way, the more objectives in a program, the more likely it is that each objective is trivial and represents content not worth learning. (Cf. Popham, 1987:680; Bracey, 1987:685f) Dressel mentions the related problem of the number of important outcomes always exceeding the number of conscious objectives (1976:30). That is, the whole is more complex than the sum of its identified, articulated particulars. Houle points out the difference between the symbol and its referent; he notes that the written form of an objective is no more than an abstract formulation of the knowledge that students will hopefully learn. (1978:147) Facing these epistemological problems, it comes as no surprise, then, that translating knowledge into behaviorally-stated objectives often distorts the deep structure of knowledge. (Stenhouse, n.d.:182; cf. McKinney, 1982:6f, based on Ausebel, 1968)

Didactic Objectives: The Middle Ground

In order to sharpen the contrast with atomistic objectives, the term didactic objectives is coined here. Where the former acts like little fences shutting in some facts, the latter views objectives as a core around which information can cluster. If atomistic objectives are like the individual pixels that make a picture, didactic objectives are more like sweeping brushstrokes that make up a painting.

Didactic objectives give priority to qualitative student learning over behavior. The essence of writing them is to accurately conceive of what it is that students should learn; only then can one consider appropriate indicators. In doing so, it restores content to a more central role in objectives, but not at the expense of functionality.

A product of history. The distinction between atomistic and didactic objectives is a useful historical tool to interpret the literature on behavioral objectives.

Didactic objectives date back at least to Tyler (1949) who wrote mainly with classroom teaching in mind. It is true that his work could be interpreted as strictly behavioristic, and he believed statements of general aims, teacher's activities, or content topics were inadequate (p. 44f). However, he was primarily concerned with producing small lists of important objectives that would help teachers in selecting learning experiences and planning instruction (pp. 43, 47). Rather naturally, the idea of didactic objectives has survived mostly in the teacher-training rather than in the theoretical-behavioral literature. The rigid educational behaviorism of the 1960s and 1970s pressed atomistic behaviorism to its limits and found its inherent faults. (See Popham, 1975:46-48 for more detail.)

Criticisms of atomistic behaviorism are not at all new. According to Kelly, Taba in 1962 saw objectives as developmental, as paths to travel rather than destinations. Kelly goes on to mention Eisner's 1969 concept of expressive objectives, which required students to express themselves but did not predetermine what students should learn; Eisner also noted how it was important for higher order thinking. It is not surprising then that Kelly sought a looser conception of objectives. (1977:40f) In 1976, Dressel had mentioned how many objectives reflect processes, had said that several kinds of possible response are better than only one, and had recommended small numbers of complex objectives (pp. 47, 51).

A year earlier, Popham, then a fervent supporter of behavioral objectives, had started to turn away from their extreme forms:

Atomistic behavioral objectives have succeeded in staying fashionable in some circles; many of the criticisms above are relatively recent. The present trend, however, is away from them. What is new is the emerging possibility of a centrist consensus that prefers didactic objectives. The consequences are important because the centrist conception becomes a consistent framework that includes both simple and complex information, both particularistic and holistic learning. This philosophy of objectives encompasses all the applied skills strengths of atomistic objectives while mostly avoiding their weaknesses. It is also much more flexible in terms of curriculum models and its view of quality.

One of the most interesting studies is that of Sadler (1987). He criticizes criterion-based objectives, apparently presuming them to be atomistic. He lists as a weakness the way that they are used to produce numerical grades with artificial cut-off points to rank students or differentiate between passing and failing. He sees the process as bureaucratic and overly dependent on statistical solutions (p. 192). That is, he sees their weakness as the use of quantitative methods to evaluate learning, a view that is analogous to quantitative program evaluation. It might then be wiser to delineate between qualitative and quantitative assessment than to try to reject the entire literature on quantitative assessment.

It is predictable, then, that Sadler prefers qualitative evaluation. He suggests the idea of standards, and his definition is distinguishable from criterion-referenced learning only as long as criteria are conceived as quantitative. When criteria are conceived qualitatively, however, his concept of standards is actually a helpful guide to formulating them.

Practical Implications for Writing Objectives

If the above discussion was largely theoretical, it makes implications for writing objectives. The following list suggests ways to overcome common mistakes in TEE texts. Many of them are in some ways particularly important to accreditation, such as complex knowledge and content.

Helpfulness to teachers and learners. Without unduly dominating the process, objectives should help teachers to teach and students to learn. Objectives fail when they do not do so.

Complex knowledge. Firstly, as knowledge is intrinsically more complex than a list of objectives, it is admittedly impossible to specify all learning goals beforehand. Consequently, the use of objectives should allow incidental learning. This also frees teaching from a strict "needs-only" mindset. Even in the 1960s, the PI movement moved toward in this direction; in 1969, Markle's programmed book used enrichment material, that is, extra explanatory information which was not necessary to work PI frames.

Secondly, the re-expressiblity of knowledge has ramifications for objectives. Objectives must test real knowledge, not just what the student knows about the textbook author's viewpoint. For example, an author who requires students to recall four characteristics of good pastoral visitation has arbitrarily interpreted the subject as four fixed characteristics. This is static, simple knowledge. Yet many experts could express their knowledge of the complex reality of the subject matter as quite different characteristics. They might insist that there are three or five or ten of them, and would unnecessarily fail the test. Finding this problem in a pre-test defeats its whole purpose because it is almost impossible to guess what the author's opinion will be. Finding it in teaching materials shows that students only get the author's viewpoint and do not get access to any deeper dynamic that explains different interpretations.

This especially applies to teaching complex skills. Dividing a large, complex skill into smaller component skills can exclude other ways of accomplishing the same complex skill. These component objectives might fit well in a teaching context, but they do not necessarily help in evaluating people who learned how to carry out the large complex skill using different component skills.

Consequently, students must sometimes create a variety of original answers, all of which may be correct. Predetermined answers are inappropriate; objectives require criteria for evaluating student responses.

Judgments using tacit knowledge. Objectives, like complex knowledge, can have fuzzy edges, so evaluation sometimes depends on the teacher's tacit knowledge rather than mechanical checks against predetermined answers. Although criteria are objective, they are too numerous and too complexly interrelated for teachers to apply them simply and mechanically.

Being less like a straightjacket does not mean that objectives are unstable descriptions of learning. Like any tool, the people who use it determine how effective it can be. For example, some objectives do not have predetermined answers but quite validly use criteria for judging student responses. Teachers can then devalue objectives by reinterpreting the criteria so that they are too demanding or not demanding enough. Nevertheless, this always happens in any system; even in strictly behavioristic PI, writers can require very easy predetermined responses.

Content. By emphasizing complex knowledge and the means to express it and evaluate it, didactic objectives restore higher level thinking skills to their correct place.

Objectives should represent and accurately conceive real content with its real vagaries and complexities, which higher education sees as important. Objectives can describe in words the properties of the kind of performance expected from students, and even include examples and highly abstract criteria. (Cf. Sadler 199ff q.v.) In this way, objectives can utilize epistemologically soft qualitative judgments based on complex tacit knowledge.

Not every detail of necessary knowledge needs to appear in a list of objectives. Instead, objectives can offer criteria as to what information will be suitable, and students can then be free to find their own information in books or in the field. It is in this sense that objectives can be cores for clusters of information.

Otherwise, objectives should in some way refer to the content they aim to teach. The objective, "The student will recall and write six principles of interpreting apocalyptic writings." does not really represent what the lesson will teach. The student could honestly pass with any six principles, and many lists of objectives are meaningless because they make this kind of mistake. Fortunately, this problem tends to occur less often in objectives requiring higher thinking skills.

Processes. Many objectives can mention learning processes. It can be very beneficial that they do so, and they are often implied anyway. For example, an objective that requires students to write a report refers not only to a product (the report with its associated learning) but also represents the learning process (the research and writing component).

Some objectives are clearer if they briefly mention the learning activity, not just the end product. For example, "The student will write a 1,500 word essay based on library research ... " or, "After reading the two texts on hermeneutics ... " Besides being clearer, these objectives imply something about the time effort needed to complete the task. This contrasts with "pure" objectives which only measure the product (what the student knows) and do not mention the learning process; that is, process and product need not always be rigidly separated.

Small numbers of complex objectives. Objectives must be few in number. Course-work subjects with myriads of tiny objectives frustrate program evaluators and teachers, and it is questionable whether students take much notice of them. In most cases, writers of study materials should structure lessons to achieve just a few ultimate complex objectives. Consequently, evaluation is less but often more complex. This is economy of objectives, meaning the fewer the items of information the better. (Drusan, 1979:98, based on Bruner, 1966:44) Using a smaller number of key concepts can reduce pressure on students to memorize by rote, so evaluation becomes more closely linked to real learning.

Indicators. Although objectives always include behavioral indicators, performing specific activities can be different from knowing and understanding. Consequently, different activities can test what is essentially the same knowledge. Moreover, objectives need clear indicators to distinguish performance levels. A Certificate in Theology graduate and a Doctor of Ministry graduate might both become pastors of churches. How does one tell that the D.Min. graduate preaches a higher quality expository sermon?

Similarly, when performance is not an absolute pass-fail distinction, the objective should have criteria for qualitative grading. The objective, "The student will write a two thousand word essay evaluating B. B. Warfield's contribution to bibliology." only asks the student to do the task and implies that doing the essay would be enough to pass, regardless of its quality. It should have included a grading system for essays, even if its interpretation depends on the tacit knowledge of the teacher.