How (NOT) to Write Student Performance Objectives

by Carl J. Wenning, Coordinator
ISU Physics Teacher Education Program

Teacher candidates seem to have a very difficult time understanding how to properly prepare precise performance-based objectives for use in lesson planning and assessment. Objective assessments of what students know and are able to do are critical components of any competency-based educational program. Given the nature of the educational environment today, with all the emphasis on standards and assessing student performance, it behooves candidate teachers to begin professional work only after they have become familiar with writing and implementing precise educational objectives. I assume for the purpose of this short article that teacher candidates have already heard about behavioral objectives from other educational course work. While precise behavioral objectives traditionally have an observable behavior, conditions, and a minimum acceptable standard of performance (W. D. Pierce & M. A. Lorber, 1977, Objectives & Methods for Secondary Teaching), I insist only on the first element -- observable behavior. I leave it to the teacher candidate to set the other parameters as deemed necessary.

How NOT to Write Objectives

Over the past few years I have seen a plethora of poorly worded objectives. Consider the following from the fields of physics and education:

As long as the students have vision, they should be able to observe the interference phenomenon.

Students can discuss superposition, but that doesn't mean that they know anything about it. Discussion does not usually lend itself to formal assessment unless we are looking at one-on-one oral examinations which I doubt the teacher has in mind.

Ability to understand is being assessed? As long as the student has an IQ of, say, 90, the student will be able to understand. Is the teacher intending to judge IQ with this objective? Probably not. Understanding is hard to assess. What sort of observable performance is expected of the student?

What does one mean by "be familiar with"? Should the student be able to list thing that make people diverse?

Students could say that labs are worthless and of no value. So long as they can justify this claim (I'm not going to become a scientist.), is credit to be awarded points for their performance?

While a student might know the difference, how is the teacher to tell without some sort of observable terminal behavior? Should the student be able to provide definitions or recognize them?

Writing Acceptable Performance-Based Objectives

To begin preparing appropriate performance-based objectives for students, teachers should create a brief list of things that students should know and be able to do at the end of instruction. All of these need to be translated into observable terminal behaviors that can then be used to formally assess student knowledge and skill. Below is a table showing a poorly worded objective adjacent to one that is much better written.

Poor Objectives: Better Objectives:
  • The student will know the Democratic Ideal upon which the ISU Teacher Education program is based.
  • The student will write an essay identifying and explaining each of the moral and intellectual virtues of the ISU Democratic Ideal.
  • The student will understand the distinction between distance and displacement.
  • The student will provide physical examples when asked to show the difference between displacement and distance.
  • The student know how to solve algebraic physics problems.
  • The student will, when given formulas and quantities associated with variables, solve the mathematical relationship for the unknown(s).

These better quality objectives are acceptable in this course; poorly written objectives are not. Remember, the best behavioral objectives will have observable behaviors, conditions, and minimum acceptable standards.

It is acceptable to use words like "understand" and "learn" in the behavioral objective so long as an observable terminal behavior is included. Nonetheless, such words are superfluous and do not really assist in clarifying what it is that the student is to be able to do to demonstrate the expected competency. Terms such as "identify" and "differentiate" are less ambiguous, but can be improved if the conditions under which such activities are to be performed are stated.

As you create your student performance-based objectives, don't forget to address the various levels within the cognitive domain. Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives - Cognitive Domain can help in this effort. Don't forget the six areas listed here from the lowest level of cognitive performance to the highest: knowledge (recall of information), comprehension (students can recall information and are familiar with the meaning of the information to the extent of being able to make some use of it), application (the act of applying some abstraction to a new or unique concrete example), analysis (ability to break down an idea into its constituent elements or internal organizational principles, and to perceive relationships among those elements or principles within one "whole" or between several "wholes"), synthesis (creation of something new from previously existing elements or principles), and evaluation (formation of a judgment and the justification of that judgment by reference to facts, examples, or specific criteria).

Be certain to distinguish between teacher goals and student outcomes. There is a difference, and the two should not be confused.