Why Learning Objectives Fail

Academics are guilty of a terrible sin. This is not meant to disparage the many wonderful faculty at many universities who work hard teaching students. We strive to learn and apply appropriate pedagogical techniques that maximize student learning. We read books about the student mindset, go to seminars on flipped classrooms, review classroom clickers for possible interaction, and attend sessions on active learning. Yet, when it comes to the writing learning objectives, we often fail.

This failure hit home for me recently as I was working on my spring class. Like most schools, we require each syllabus to contain a list of learning objectives for the students to master. Like most faculty, I follow standard learning objective norms, using terms from Blooms taxonomy to identify verbs followed by short phrases of what I expected students to master by the end of the semester. As I was reviewing the learning objectives for my course, it immediately became clear to me that they were next to useless.

Why?

Because for two very important reasons – 1) they are not understandable to students entering my class, and 2) they do not make it clear what success would look like.

Understanding Learning Objectives

Many academics will look at this list and think “What’s the problem?” And no wonder. When looking at other faculty syllabi, they look remarkably similar. Consider a random sampling of syllabi I found online while writing this post:

• Develop comprehensive, clear written and mathematical analyses that make sense and that foster the decision-making process. https://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/rome/syllabipdfs/fall2017/SCMG%20332.pdf
• Define operation and capital budgeting, and explain its role in planning, control and decision making. https://www.panola.edu/syllabi/documents/acct2402.pdf
• Describe the characteristics and educational implications of diagnosed disabilities and other conditions that warrant adaptation to general education curriculum to meet unique learning needs. http://www.apus.edu/z/course-syllabus/EDUC561.pdf
• Recognize the core practice competencies of culturally competent nursing care. https://semo.edu/pdf/old/Provost_30Day_NS371.pdf
• Students will learn to demonstrate positive work behavior. https://www.na.edu/documents/academics/certificate-programs/graphic-design-syllabus.pdf

The problems with these learning objectives vary, but all lead to the same outcome – difficulty with understanding. Some use excessive number of large words (i.e. “interrelatedness”, “competencies”, ). Others use an excessive number of modifiers for terms (i.e. “web application development” modifies “technologies” or “culturally competent nursing” modifies “care”). Some are just vague (i.e. “positive work behavior”). As I quoted these objectives, I watched my “Flesch Reading Ease” score for this post plummet from in the 50s to the low 20s. Rather than creating insights and clarity, these objectives succumbed to obscure phrases and obliqueness.

One rejoinder to the oblique language argues that the learning objectives are written for college students. If the students can’t understand the objective, then they shouldn’t be in the class. However, this often becomes an excuse. difficult to read learning objectives requires such high levels of cognitive processing that students struggle to understand the statement. They are unable to find motivation in the statement because they are too busy just trying to process it.

Alternatively, faculty suggest that the learning objectives are worded so that students at the end of the course will understand the meaning. Students don’t read the syllabus at the end of the semester, rather at the beginning. If the syllabus is not understandable at the beginning, it is worthless to students. Learning objectives should be written in language that students new to the class can understand.

Learning Objective Success

Secondly, many learning objectives fail to capture what success looks like. To infrequently, the objectives fail to identify the point of learning, such as how it can or will be used. Students need to know what exactly are the expectations.

For example in my old syllabus, I state students should be able to “Understand and explain the application development environment and infrastructure”. To whom is that explanation for? Are they explaining it to another IT professional, to a small business owner, or to their grandma? Each of these requires a different level of understanding and precision in language. Specifying which level of communication would help students better visualize the level of understanding they need to achieve.

Unfortunately, best practices in writing learning objectives focus almost exclusively on using Bloom’s taxonomy on a single line summarizing the objective. One of the major problems with Bloom’s taxonomy is that the lower levels seem to imply that learning should take place simply for learning sake. “Understand X”, “Recite Y”, “Compare Z”. But why? Why understand, recite, or compare? There is no connection to reality. No connection with motivation to learn. No reason for students to study.

What should a learning objective look like?

Consider my first objective: “Understand and explain the application development environment and infrastructure”. If I wanted to simplify that statement, I could say “Understand the pros and cons of common tools, techniques, and technologies for web development”. However, that still doesn’t identify what success would look like. To improve the statement, I could rephrase it as “Understand the pros and cons of common tools, techniques, and technologies for web development well enough to recommend them in a specific context.”

I did this with all of my original objectives. My new set of learning objectives looks like this:

• Understand how managers, users, marketers, and IT professionals see e-commerce differently so that you can meaningful speak to each from their point of view.
• Understand common e-commerce terms well enough to be confident talking with recruiters about them.
• Describe the pros and cons of common tools, techniques, and technologies for web development well enough to recommend them in a specific context.
• Describe the differences between HTML, CSS, and PHP to a business man or woman.
• Build simple web applications from scratch with HTML, CSS, and PHP that use data from a database.
• Install a pre-built web application, such as WordPress, and customize it based on business requirements.

These objectives still need tweeks.  In fact if you have anything to add, I would love for you to leave a comment.  I’ll also seek feedback from other faculty and students to see if I can improve how they are worded.  Optimally, the learning objectives are clear, motivating, and precise.  Here’s to hoping I have moved in the right direction.