Writing Learning Objectives

^{Last revised: 07/15/2024 by JAP}

Overview:

Objectives explain the destination of the learning experience to students. When written well and aligned with other course elements, objectives help students make cognitive connections between materials, learning activities and assessments. This alignment increases the possibility of learning success and enables both the students and the instructor to stay focused and monitor learning.

Learning Objectives

UConn subscribes to the research-based course design standards of Quality Matters which defines an objective as “a statement of the specific and measurable knowledge, skills, attributes, and habits learners are expected to achieve and demonstrate as a result of their educational experiences in a program, course, or module.” (p.69) To summarize the key characteristics, objectives should be:

Specific – detailed and without ambiguity
Measurable – observable performance or action by the learner
Student-centered – focused on what the learner will achieve or demonstrate

Formats, Levels and Domains

Instructional designers are taught the formal objective writing method ABCD. This stands for Audience, Behavior, Condition and Degree. An objective written in this format reads:

Given three current research articles, the nutrition science student should be able to discuss trends in plant-based diets that meet at least the “B” level grading rubric criteria.

- Audience = nutrition science student
- Behavior = discuss the trends of plant-based diets
- Condition = given three current research articles
- Degree = meet at least the “B” level grading rubric criteria

However, most faculty communicate to students using informal or instructional objectives on their syllabi and in their courses. This is because the condition and degree are communicated, or integrated, elsewhere in the course. Informal objectives are also simpler and easier for the learner to read. For example:

Discuss the current trends of plant-based diets.

There are also different levels of learning objectives. In training and professional environments, you may hear the terms terminal and enabling objectives; however, in higher education, we tend to use the terms course and module objectives to distinguish levels. Since course and module objectives are also used by Quality Matters, we will use those terms going forward. To clarify the distinction between the levels:

Course Level Objectives – the specific and measurable performance a learner will demonstrate at the conclusion of an entire course experience. (Sample Measurable Course Learning Objectives from Different Fields of Study)
Module Level Objectives – discrete measurable performance statements related to a specific chunk, or topic, within a course that enable the achievement of the course’s objectives.

If you are involved in academic program planning, you will engage with program level objectives. These would be broader than course objectives and reflect what students should be able do after earning a degree or certificate.

Lastly, learning objectives can be categorized into different domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor.

Cognitive – knowledge acquisition and application
Affective – emotional abilities related to interests, attitudes, and values
Psychomotor – physical coordination and skills

In higher education, we primarily focus learning within the cognitive domain. Therefore, we will focus on writing objectives in the cognitive domain next.

Writing Cognitive Objectives

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist who created a classification of learning domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. For each of the domains, Bloom created a taxonomy of objectives with the cognitive domain starting at knowledge and building up to the more complex skill of evaluation. Bloom’s colleagues, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, revised the taxonomy in 2001 as pictured above, switching the top two levels of the pyramid and placing “create” at the top.

Instructional designers use Bloom’s Taxonomy to help craft measurable learning objectives at the correct level. Course level objectives should be at the same level or above on the taxonomy than their corresponding module level objectives. Module level objectives should incrementally build the students’ knowledge that is necessary to achieve the course level objectives. When writing objectives:

Craft your course level objectives first. (Sample Measurable Course Learning Objectives from Different Fields of Study)
Identify the cognitive skills on Bloom’s Taxonomy that you want students to be able to do.
For each skill, choose a measurable action verb in the classification that captures what students will need to demonstrate.
- Avoid vague terms such as understand, know, and learn.
- Avoid compound predicates, such as “Identify and explain the health risks of smoking.” Rather go with the highest order verb explain, which assumes the student knows or can perform the lower action identify.
Provide a specific description for each statement.
Once all course level objectives are defined, outline or chunk supporting instructional topics into modules.
Draft each module’s objectives using steps 2-4.
Verify that the module objectives are at the correct level (hierarchy) and not higher on the taxonomy than their corresponding course level objective(s). Make revisions as needed.

Using our nutrition science course example from earlier, let’s go through steps 1-4:

Level of Objective = course level
Desired Cognitive Skill = explain ideas or concepts
Chosen Action Verb = discuss
Specific Description = current trends of plant-based diets

Getting Started

Writing learning objectives well is not an easy task, but it’s important to clearly communicate your instructional intentions to students. It may take numerous iterations to get objectives targeted correctly, clear, measurable and specific. If you have trouble getting started, try one or all these strategies:

Look at your current course assessments – What are you asking students to know and do? How can you transform what’s asked into learning objectives for students?
Ask yourself – What are 3–7 important skills and/or knowledge you want students to take away from your course?
Ask your department –What knowledge and skills should your course help students achieve within the academic program?
Ask your program colleagues – How can you scaffold and build bridges between courses in the same program? What knowledge or skills should your course address to help students succeed in your colleagues’ courses and vice versa?
Ask business and industry professionals – What skills and knowledge will students need to succeed in professional settings related to your course’s topic?
Ask AI – See if ChatGPT can get you started by prompting it for specific, measurable and student-centered objectives related to your course’s topic. Then transform and contextualize the draft into your academic program’s expectations and your course’s parameters.

Additional Resources 

References 

Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
Bloom, Benjamin S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. 
Hodell, C. (2023). Chapter 10: Objectives in ISD From The Ground Up, 4th Edition: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design (1st ed.). Association for Talent Development. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/isd-from-the/9781607281665/OEBPS/c10.htm
Orr, R. B., Csikari, M. M., Freeman, S., & Rodriguez, M. C. (2022). Writing and Using Learning Objectives. CBE life sciences education, 21(3), fe3. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.22-04-0073

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