As of 4/4/2004
Helen H. Baker, Ph.D., MBA – hbaker@wvsom.edu
“At the end of this
chapter on writing objectives, the reader will be able to:
The two statements above are “objectives.” Anyone who graduated from a health professions school in the last 30 years will have seen thousands of objectives -- but some Field Faculty may still lack confidence when asked to write them. Entire books are written on how to write educational objectives, and professional educators will spend hours arguing about their nuances: however, the basics are fairly straightforward. This chapter is designed as a brief guide to help Field Faculty write educational objectives that will satisfy students, a Curriculum Committee or a CME Program committee.
The WV RHEP Faculty Development Committee recommends that, at the beginning of each Interdisciplinary learning activity, the facilitator/preceptor list the learning objectives for the session. Generally these objectives are shared with students: however, in some cases, you may wish to withhold them – for example, if students are working with a differential diagnosis, giving away the diagnosis (“….develop a treatment plan for cholera”) might short-circuit the discovery process.
Properly-written objectives focus on what the student will be able to do at the end of the learning activity. The easiest ways to focus on learning outcomes is start every objective with the statement, “At the end of this [lecture, lab, rotation, seminar, learning activity], the student will be able to ….”
Writing learning objectives requires a mental shift, from what the teacher plans to do, to what the student is expected to be able to do at the end of the component. Below are several learning activities, and some possible “objectives” related to these activities which might (or might not!) be the intended learning outcomes:
|
Learning Activities (NOT objectives!) |
Possible related Objective |
|
“I’m going to have students use MedLine to find current references …. |
At the end of this activity, the student will be able to list journals related to this case from health profession disciplines other than the student’s own discipline. |
|
“I’m going to have them spend the afternoon in the Physical Therapy department. |
At the end of this activity, nursing and medical students will be able to describe to future patients how a Physical Therapist assists with rehabilitation after ACL surgery. |
It’s easy to avoid the mistake of describing the learning activity rather than stating an objective: just start every objective with “At the end of this activity, the student will be able to ….” and you’ll always be focusing on learning outcomes.
This is a rule educators often break, but we should do so only after understanding the rule and the reason for it. An educational objective should focus on observable behaviors – knowledge, skills or attitudes that can be measured. Formal educational objectives do not use terms such as “understand” or “appreciate”, because these characteristics cannot be observed. (Among friends, we sometimes relax this rule – but only among very close friends.) Some “action verbs” frequently used in writing educational objectives are:
· list
· define
· identify
· select
· name
· describe
· interpret
· predict
· solve
· demonstrate
· differentiate
· explain
· compare
· contrast.
Students and curriculum committees are accustomed to seeing these action verbs, and will generally approve objectives that use them with little comment. In general, we want to emphasize the “higher order”, more complex skills – those near the bottom of the list – rather than the lower-order, memory level objectives, such as “list” and “define.” (Unfortunately, generally speaking, the more important the content, the more difficult it is to teach and to evaluate!)
Another philosophical point: ideally, when an objective specifies that the student will be able to “explain”, the related test would also ask the student to “explain”, resulting in a short-answer or essay test. However, in practice, educators often violate this principle and, for ease of grading and to improve standardization, give multiple choice tests rather than essay exams, oral exams, practical exams, or other testing methods.
The action verbs listed in the section above all refer to the “cognitive” domain: thinking, and expressing the results of those thoughts. Most academic programs focus on the cognitive domain, and evaluate achievement using written tests.
The second learning domain referred to by educational psychologists is the “psychomotor” domain – performing a physical skill. Psychomotor skills generally require practice, and must be “measured” in a practical examination of some sort, perhaps on a mannequin (as, in Advanced Cardiac Life Support) or in a clinical setting with simulated or real patients. Examples of psychomotor include:
At the end of the learning activity, the student will be able to:
· give an injection to an orange [or a plastic teaching model], following each step of the procedure as taught.
· take the blood pressure of an average weight adult patient, and obtain both systolic and diastolic pressures within 3 points of the reading obtained by the preceptor.
The third learning domain often used by educational psychologists is the “affective” or “attitudinal” domain, for objectives related to attitudes, values and beliefs. The WV Rural Health Education Partnerships program explicitly intends to encourage certain values, and Faculty will have attitudinal objectives. The ultimate “measures” of these outcomes will be choice of clinical practice location (did students in fact return to practice in rural WV communities?) and practice style (do students in fact work effectively with colleagues from other health professions disciplines, and work with them in an appropriate and respectful way?). Some professionals would insist that attitudinal objectives be phrased in terms of such outcomes. However, among close friends, we may find it necessary to bend these rules a bit, and accept as “objectives” statements such as the following:
· The student will demonstrate a respect and cooperation in his/her interaction with students from other disciplines
· The student will function effectively with members of the health care team
· The student will demonstrate an appreciation of the cultural/social and economic values of rural WV, as they influence medical care in the community.
Additional Reading:
Mager, Robert F. Preparing Instructional Objectives: A critical tool in the development of effective instruction. 3rd edition. 1997. Center for Effective Performance, Atlanta.
Tutorials on writing objectives:
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/EDTEC540/objectives/ObjectivesHome.html
http://www.udayton.edu/~aep/legaled/planning/05object.htm
http://www.gsu.edu/~mstmbs/CrsTools/Magerobj.html
References with additional information about Bloom’s Taxonomy:
http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/bloom.html
Information specific to the affective domain: