The learning outcomes assessment process begins with the development of mission and vision statements for your program, followed by the development of goals, which are long-term program targets for your graduates. For detailed descriptions of these elements of the planning process, see pp. 16 – 25 of the Program Assessment Handbook developed in 2003 at the University of South Florida.
This tutorial assumes that you have already developed your mission, vision and goals. We begin with the development of learning objectives (aka student learning outcomes, or SLOs), which are statements that describe what students will know, think or do when they graduate from your program.
Good program-level learning objectives have the following characteristics:
1. They are written from the student’s perspective – they describe what students will know or be able to do.
2. They are written clearly.
3. They are specific – but general enough so that they can be measured in a variety of circumstances.
4. They are measurable – they are written using verbs that suggest ways to collect evidence.
For example, examine the following learning objective from a psychology program:
As you can see, this objective refers to what students will be able to do. It provides a verb that suggests that your measurement will involve a comparison of some kind. And it is specific because it refers to psychological theories, but it is general enough so that it could be measured in a variety of ways, such as an essay question, a presentation, or a debate.
The key to writing measurable learning objectives is the verb. The verb tells you how to measure the “knowledge, skill or attitude,” but it also provides information about the level of knowledge, skill or attitude. Thus, before writing an objective, it is important to determine the level that you expect students to reach. Bloom’s Taxonomy, developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, is a useful framework for this purpose.
Once you have determined the level of knowledge, skill or attitude, you can choose appropriate sample verbs to use when developing learning objectives (and assignments).
After you have looked over Bloom’s taxonomy and the sample verbs, respond to the following question. Then you can practice writing learning objectives.
Test your ability to modify a poorly written learning objective.
Activity
Feel free to submit your learning objective(s) for review by a Schreyer Institute Consultant at assess@psu.edu.