Difference between Learning Outcomes and Objectives

Learning outcomes and objectives’ are often used synonymously, although they are not

the same. In simple words, objectives are concerned with teaching and the teacher’s

intentions whereas learning outcomes are concerned with students learning.

However, objectives and learning outcomes are usually written in same terms.

Importance of Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes facilitate teachers more precisely to tell students what is expected of

them. Clearly stated learning outcomes:

• help students to learn more effectively. They know where they stand and the

curriculum is made more open to them.

• make it clear what students can hope to gain from a particular course or lecture.

• help instructors select the appropriate teaching strategy, for example lecture,

seminar, student self-paced, or laboratory class. It obviously makes sense to

match the intended outcome to the teaching strategy.

• help instructors more precisely to tell their colleagues what a particular activity is

designed to achieve.

• assist in setting examinations based on the content delivered.

• Help in the selection of appropriate assessment strategies.

Objectives and Educational Outcomes

1. Definition of Objectives

Education is, without any doubt, a purposeful activity. Every step of this activity has and

should definitely have a particular purpose. Therefore learning objectives are a prime and

integral part of teaching learning process.

A learning objective refers to the

statement of what students will obtain

of a performance you want learners to be

able to exhibit before you consider them

competent. An objective describes an

intended result of instruction, rather than

the process of instruction itself.’ (Mager,

Characteristics/ Attributes of the Objectives

Good objectives have three essential characteristics:

• Behaviour - Firstly, an objective must explain the competency to be learned, the

intended change in the behaviour of the learners. For this purpose it is necessary

to use the verb in the statement of the objective which identifies an observable

behaviour of the learner.

• Criterion - Secondly, an objective must clarify the intended degree of

performance. In other words objective should not only indicate the change in the

behaviour of the students but also the level or degree of that change as well. For

this purpose the statement of the objective must indicate a degree of accuracy, a

quantity or proportion of correct responses or the like.

• Conditions - Thirdly, an objective should describe the conditions under which the

learning will occur. In other words, under what circumstances the learner will

develop the competency? What will the learner be given or already be expected

to know to accomplish the learning? For example, a condition could be stated as,

told a case study, shown a diagram, given a map, after listening a lecture or

observing a demonstration, after through reading, etc

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Following the 1948 Convention of the American Psychological Association, a group of

college examiners considered the need for a system of classifying educational goals for

the evaluation of student performance. Years later and as a result of this effort, Benjamin
Bloom formulated a classification of "the goals of the educational process". Eventually,

Bloom established a hierarchy of educational objectives for categorizing level of

abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings (Bloom, 1965). This

classification is generally referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy. Taxonomy means 'a set of

classification principles', or 'structure'. The followings are six levels in this taxonomy:

Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The

detail is given below:

In this unit you will learn that how important are the objectives and learning outcomes in

the process of assessment. A teacher should know that the main advantage of objectives

is to guide the teaching-learning activities. In simple words these are the desired

outcomes of an effort. Guided by these specific objectives instructional activities are

designed and subsequently assessment is carried out through different methods. One of

the most common methods to assess the ability of a student in any specific subject is a

test. Most tests taken by students are developed by teachers. The goal of this unit is for

you to be able to design, construct, and analyze a test for a given set of objectives or

content area. Therefore, the objective are key components for developing a test. These are

the guiding principles for assessment. For achievement testing cognitive domain is very

much emphasized and widely used by educationists. Taxonomy of Educational

Objectives developed by Benjamin Bloom (1956) deals with activities like memorizing,

interpreting, analyzing and so on. This taxonomy provides a useful way of describing the

complexity of an objective by classifying into one of the hierarchical categories from

simplest to complex. One of the important task for a teacher while designing a test is the

selection and sampling of test items from course contents. The appropriateness of the

content of a test is considered at earliest stages of development. Therefore, the process of

developing a test should begin with the identification of content domain at first stage and

development of table of specification at second stage. In this unit we have focused on

what we want students to learn and what content we want our tests to cover.
Defining Learning Outcomes?

Learning outcomes are the statements indicating what a student is expected to be able to

do as a result of a learning activity. Major difference between learning objectives and out

comes is that objectives are focused upon the instruction, what will be given to the

students and the outcomes are focused upon the students what behaviour change they are

being expected to show as the result of the instruction.