Learning Outcomes
Dr. J. Michael Duvall
What follows defines and describes learning outcomes, including their relation to educational goals for critical thinking and levels of knowledge, how they are articulated, and their employment in assessing the educational practices of individuals and institutions. On the bottom of the final page, this document also provides a list of links to other learning outcome and assessment websites.
What are learning outcomes?
Learning outcomes are educational goals designed to meet specific educational needs. More specifically, in the form educators are likely to encounter and use them, learning outcomes are written or otherwise published statements which clearly articulate what a student should be able to do as a result of an educational activity (e.g., a semester-long class, a workshop, a unit of instruction within a course, a single assignment, etc.). Furthermore, learning outcomes focus not only on doing, but also on observable, measurable, and assessable activity. As a whole, the collection of learning outcomes articulated for any educational activity sketch a portrait of the student that the educator wishes to emerge as a result of the activity.
To get some sense of how a learning outcome differs from a more general goal statement, note how the two following statements differ:
At the end of the semester, you will know the key figures of speech and how they function in literary works.
At the end of the semester, you will be able to identify key figures of speech and interpret them in literary works.
The first statement certainly establishes an important goal for a hypothetical introductory literature class. Yet one might fairly ask what is meant by “knowing.” Many instruments for measuring such knowledge might come to mind, but just the simple act of thinking about the goal as a practical problem (how do you "test" it?) reveals indeterminacy in the language of the more general goal: know lacks clarity. What does it mean, exactly, to know? On the other hand, as expressed in the second statement, a fully fledged learning outcome, identifying and interpreting describe more readily observable activities, and, importantly, these verbs also describe activities that when successfully completed signal specific forms and levels of knowledge and critical thinking skill.
Learning outcomes and critical thinking
Well-formed learning outcomes tie directly to specific types and levels of knowledge and critical thinking within a discipline. Well-formed learning outcomes target the levels of knowledge and skill that educators wish to inculcate in students and, in so doing, precisely communicate our expectations to students (and to "overhearing" audiences as well, such as administrators reviewing departmental syllabi).
As educators know, complex thinking emerges out of a synthesis of different kinds and levels of knowledge and critical thinking skills. The research and literature on learning outcomes depends chiefly on this assumption, particularly as it derives from Benjamin Bloom's seminal work on educational practice, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956). Bloom describes six categories of learning within the cognitive domain which build upon one another, the first grounding the second, and so on. Hierarchically represented, with the most complex forms of thinking last in the list, the levels are as follows:
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Comprehension builds on knowledge, application builds on comprehension, and so forth, in increasing complexity (see the sidebar for a quick-and-dirty run down).
Verbs in written learning outcomes
Bloom's categories of critical thinking provide not only the qualities of various levels of thinking but also sets of verbs that describe the actions or kinds of behaviors characteristic of competence in each level (see the sidebar). For instance, the verbs identify and interpret in the example learning outcome above derive directly from Bloom's taxonomy:
To identify figures of speech is an activity descriptive of thinking at the level of knowledge, at which level we can expect a person to perform the basic operations of definition, recognition, and so forth.
Stepping up one level on the critical thinking ladder, to interpret describes activity on the level of comprehension, at which level we can expect a person not just to recognize and define terms but to grasp their meaning.
The lists of verbs directly relating to the levels of thinking described by Bloom can be very useful in articulating what activities and levels of knowledge and thinking that teachers want students to be capable of as a result of instruction and assignments.
Learning outcomes and assessment
Learning outcomes figure prominently in assessment efforts--both the assessment an individual might make of her own teaching practices and the assessment that institutions might make of their practices as a whole.
For individual teachers, well-formed learning outcomes provide clear articulations against which educators can evaluate their practice in the broadest sense. Did a lecture tie directly into a course knowledge goal?; did a written assignment effectively measure the level of a students' skill?; did, at the end of a unit or a semester, the class meet the stated learning outcomes? Learning outcomes provide the starting point for a process of feedback that can help teachers better design and execute their pedagogy; but more than that, learning outcomes can also provide a starting point for evaluating the learning outcomes themselves--do the articulated learning goals reflect what should be expected of students at a particular institution and/or level of instruction?
This last consideration suggests the role that learning outcomes can play in institutional and program assessment. Educational institutions and departments within institutions might be thought of as collections not only of disciplinary specialists, but also of educational practices, which--manifesting in classes, seminars, colloquia, directed readings sessions, and all the formal instruction required of students--accrete to form what a department or institution collectively "does." Surveying the articulated learning outcomes for the educational activities that take place under the departmental and/or institutional umbrella allows departments and institutions to take measure of what they actually do against what they say they do in mission statements. Such data might also provide an occasion for re-thinking the departmental or institutional mission.
Overview
Learning outcomes are:
- statements of goals that fulfill educational needs
- focused on observable and assessable actions or behaviors
- expressed in key verbs - used to communicate expectations
- employed in assessing educational practices
Websites on Bloom's taxonomy in connection with learning outcomes
Bloom's Taxonomy: Original and Revised
College of Education
University of Georgia
Bloom et al.'s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
Dr. William G. Huitt
Department of Psychology and Counseling
Valdosta State University
Websites on learning outcomes and assessment
How to Write Learning Outcomes
by Alan Jenkins (Oxford Brookes University) & Dave Unwin (Birkbeck College London)
Writing Learning Outcomes
American Association of Law Libraries
Verbs that Express Learning Outcomes or Competencies
Adams Center for Learning Excellence, Abilene Christian University
(also, see the link on this site to Bloom's taxonomy of learning).
Writing Assessable Learning Outcomes (Word Document)
Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Southampton
Student Learning Outcomes: Recommended Reading for Faculty
Western Washington University
Developing Clear Learning Outcomes and Objectives (PDF)
The Learning Management Corporation
Fair Assessment Practices: Giving Students Equitable Opportunities to Demonstrate Learning
By Linda Suskie
Doing Assessment As If Learning Matters Most
By Thomas A. Angelo