Components of Learning Objectives

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SUMMARY

Motivation is the cornerstone of successful learning, especially in the realm of e-learning where students must be self-directed. The ARCS model, comprising Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction, plays a pivotal role in sustaining motivation. In this blog post, we'll delve into the essential elements of effective learning objectives, encapsulated by the ABCD framework: Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree.

Attention: Sustainably Stimulating Minds

To capture students' attention, mental stimulation is crucial, particularly at the beginning of a lesson. The content must be relevant to the learners' interests, goals, and learning styles. Establishing positive expectations of success fosters confidence, contributing to sustained attention throughout an e-learning course.

Audience: Who, What, and Why

Learning objectives serve as guiding beacons for students, outlining what they are expected to know and do. The audience, the first component, defines the target population explicitly—whether they are students, faculty, or managers. For objectives to be effective, specificity matters. For example, "The 8th-grade girls" or "The process technician" clarifies the audience and enhances communication among instructional design teams.

Behavior: The Action Verb Conundrum

Choosing the right action verb is pivotal in crafting effective learning objectives. The behavior component should align with the instructional analysis and be measurable and observable. Verbs like stating, listing, and writing explicitly describe actions that can be observed, ensuring clarity and precision in the learning process.

Condition: Setting the Stage for Success

Conditions in learning objectives serve multiple functions, specifying cues, stimuli, resource materials, tools, and the scope and complexity of the task. They create the context for performance, dictating what learners are allowed to use. Clear conditions enhance understanding and provide a framework for learners to excel in their tasks.

Degree: Measuring Success

The degree or criteria component outlines how performance will be measured, whether through quantity, quality, efficiency, or durability. Numeric measures, such as percentages or frequencies, provide clarity on what constitutes acceptable completion. Defining the degree ensures that learners understand the expectations and paves the way for effective assessment.

Satisfaction: Fostering Positive Learning Experiences

Satisfaction, the ultimate goal, refers to positive feelings about accomplishments and learning experiences. All these components collectively create the set conditions necessary for online students to be fully motivated and engaged. In the e-learning landscape, understanding what is expected and how success is measured is paramount for student satisfaction.

In conclusion, the ABCDs of learning objectives—Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree—serve as a comprehensive guide to crafting effective and motivating learning experiences. By paying attention to these components, educators and instructional designers can create clear, measurable, and relevant objectives that keep students engaged and motivated throughout their e-learning journey.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to the eLearning and Instructional Design for Beginners podcast, where new and aspiring instructional designers start, grow, and advance their careers in instructional design and online learning development. I'm your host, Crystal Harper. I'm a former school teacher who transitioned to instructional design, all while working full-time as a single mom. Would you like to become a successful instructional designer without the burden of earning another degree? Well then, let's get started.

Motivation is a key component to selecting effective resources. The ARCS model was designed to keep students motivated and self-directed. I will briefly describe each letter in the acronym.

ATTENTION Students need to be sus Sustainably mentally stimulated, especially at the beginning of a lesson relevance the content from the instruction needs to be relevant to the Objectives and the learner such as their interests goals, and learning styles Confidence it's important to establish positive expectations of success to your online students Satisfaction.

Satisfaction refers to positive feelings about one's accomplishments and learning experiences. All of these four categories represent set conditions that are necessary for online students to be fully motivated. In an e-learning course, learners need to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

What the students are to know and be able to do as a result of the instruction. Such statements are known as learning objectives. Learning objectives describe what the learners should be able to do as a result of the e-learning course. They describe what learners can do and what they complete in a unit or module of instruction and are typically derived from a goal analysis.

In comparison, enabling objectives describe the sub-skills, knowledge, or attitudes learners require to achieve the terminal objective and are derived from the skills in your goal analysis. One of the four basic components of an objective is the audience. The target population who is expected to complete the objective should be defined.

Examples of the audience could be students, faculty, managers. It's important to make the target audience explicit, particularly when instructional designers are preparing objectives to communicate their designers to other instructional design or development team members. Which of the following statements would you say defines the audience?

Given all the available OSHA requirements, list the steps necessary in labeling a container with 80 percent accuracy. Or, the student will be able to list 7 presidents with 100 percent accuracy. If you chose, given all the available OSHA requirements list the steps necessary in labeling a container with 80 percent accuracy, think about the audience.

This learning objective does have different components, but it does not actually state the audience. Remember that in a learning objective, the audience must be actually stated. For example, the 8th grade girls, or the process technician. If you chose, the student will be able to list 7 presidents with 100 percent accuracy.

Excellent. This is not a complete performance objective, but it does state the first component, the audience. The audience can be stated in a general manner, as seen here. Or it can be stated in more specific terms. The second component for writing an objective is the behavior. The behavior is typically an action verb that describes what learners are expected to know or be able to do.

It should match the verb identified in your instructional analysis. One of the difficult parts of writing a learning objective is to select an appropriate verb to describe the to-be-learned behavior. The verb and the objective should describe an observable action and should be measurable. It is important to remember that the best objectives are explicit and exclude meanings other than your intent, such as to know versus to write.

We cannot observe a person knowing, understanding, or appreciating, but we can observe a person writing, describing, or evaluating. If it is not measurable, it would not be possible to determine precisely if students achieved the objective. Be sure to download the attached list action verbs or behaviors that are observable and measurable.

They are classified according to six levels of learning posited by Bloom. Words like appreciating, liking, and understanding can only be amplified, they cannot be observed. Review the list of verbs in relation to the given taxonomy. Remember to look at the level of learning and then pick a verb that will explicitly describe what you want the learner to do.

Words like stating, listing, and writing can explicitly describe a behavior. Many verbs involve fine motor skills, but behavior can also be observed by a verb like running, jumping, and skating. The third part of the learning objective is the condition. The condition may serve several functions. It may specify, A, the cue or stimulus that learners will use to search for information stored in memory, B, the characteristic of resource materials or tools required to perform the task, and or C, the scope and complexity of the task.

In short, it describes the conditions under which learners are expected to perform the specified behavior. Examples of condition are given a list of 20 factors, given a thermometer, when provided with a calendar, or granted 2, 000, It is important to remember that when we are dealing with a condition, the condition states the available resources.

A condition can state the situation and setting for the performance to take place. Remember that the condition can tell the cue or stimulus used in a learning objective. The condition states what the learner will be allowed to use. The fourth part of the learning objective is the degree or criteria.

The degree tells how the performance will be measured, and what is the acceptable completion for the required performance. The degree often relays a numeric measure and may include quantity, quality, efficiency, or durability. Examples of degree include how much? 80%. How often? 2 times. How accurate? Within 2 pounds.

To what extent? With little to no assistance. When we are dealing with degree, we are talking about the quality of a performance. When we are dealing with degree, we are stating what is the acceptable amount of correct or incorrect answers that something has. Remember that there are four major components of a learning objective.

These different components are necessary in writing learning objectives. They are also what we call the ABCDs of learning objectives. The ABCDs include the audience, behavior, the condition, and the degree. As you recall, the audience describes the target population of the learning objective. The behavior describes the skill, knowledge, or attitude that is to be learned.

It's typically an action verb and must be measurable and observable. The condition states what the learner will be allowed to use. It will also describe what circumstances the expected performance will occur. And the degree or criteria describes how the performance will be measured, what is acceptable behavior, and or to what extent the learner is expected to exhibit the behavior.