LECTURE NOTES IN ASSESSMENT IN LEARNING 1

LECTURE 2: Assessing Learning Outcomes

Introduction
Instructional goals and objectives play a very important role in both instructional process and assessment process.
Assessing the learning outcomes of the students is one of the very critical functions of teachers. Classify the objectives of the
lesson for the selection of the teaching method and the selection of the instructional materials. The objectives can be classified
according to the learning outcomes of the lesson that will be discussed.

PURPOSES OF INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

1. It provides direction for the instructional process by clarifying the intended learning outcomes;
2. It conveys instructional intent to other stakeholders such as the students, parents, school officials, and the public; and
3. It provides basis for assessing the performance of the students by describing the performance to be measured.
Goals and Objectives
The terms goals and objectives are two different concepts but they are related to each other.
Goals can never be accomplished without objectives and you cannot get the objectives that you want without goals.
This means that goals and objectives are both tools that you need in order that you can accomplish what you want
to achieve.

GOALS, GENERAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OBJECTIVES, & INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

GOALS
A broad statement of very general educational outcomes that do not include specific level of performance. It tend to
change infrequently and in response to the societal pressure, e.g., learn problem solving skills; develop high level thinking
skills; appreciate the beauty of an art; be creative; and be competent in the basic skills in the area of grammar.
GENERAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
More narrowly defined statements of educational outcomes that apply to specific educational programs;
Formulated on the annual basis; and
Developed by program coordinators, principals, and other school administrators.
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
Specific statement of the learners behavior or outcomes that are expected to be exhibited by the students after
completing a unit of instruction. Unit of instruction may mean: a two-week lesson plan on polynomials; one week lesson on
“parallelism after correlatives”; one class period on “katangian ng wika”. At the end of the lesson the students should be able
to add fractions with 100% accuracy; the students should be able to dissect the frog following the correct procedures.

TYPICAL PROBLEMS Encountered when writing objectives

Four main things that objectives should specify
Audience
Who? Who are the specific people the objectives are aimed at?
Observable Behavior (Behavior)
What? What do you expect them to be able to do? This should be an overt, observable behavior, even if the actual
behavior is covert or mental in nature.
If you cannot see it, hear it, touch it, or smell it, you cannot be sure your audience really learned it.
Special Conditions (Condition)
The behavior must be displayed by the students.
How? Under what circumstances will the learning occur?
What will the student be given or already be expected to know to accomplish the learning?
Stating Criterion Level (Degree)
The criterion level of acceptable performance specifies how many of the items must the students answer correctly
for the teacher to attain his/her objectives.
How much? Must a specific set of criteria be met? Do you want total mastery (100%), do you want them to respond
correctly 90% of the time, among others?
Types of educational objectives
SPECIFIC OR BEHAVIORAL OBJECTIVES
Precise statement of behavior to be exhibited by the students;
The criterion by which mastery of the objectives will be judged; and
The statement of the conditions under which behavior must be demonstrated.
GENERAL OR EXPRESSIVE OBJECTIVES
The behaviors are not usually specified and the criterion of the performance level is not stated.
It describes the experience or educational activity to be done. It is not expressed in specific terms but in general terms such
as understand, interpret, or analyze.
Instructional Objectives
Clear and concise statement if skill or skills that students are expected to perform or exhibit after discussing a
certain lesson or unit of instruction.
The components of instructional objectives are observable behaviors, special conditions which the behavior must
be exhibited and performance level considered sufficient to demonstrate mastery.
 When a teacher developed instructional objectives, he must include an action verb that specifies learning
outcomes.
Learning Outcome – an activity that implies a certain product or end result of instructional objectives.
Learning Activity – if you write instructional objectives as a means or process of attaining the end product.

TYPES of LEARNING OUTCOMES

After developing learning outcomes the next step the teacher must consider is to identify whether the learning
outcome is stated as a measurable and observable behavior. The following are examples of verbs in terms of observable
learning outcomes and unobservable learning outcomes.

Types of learning outcomes to consider

Below are the lists of learning outcomes classified as a learning objective; there are merely suggestive as categories to be
considered (Gronlund, Linn, Miller, 2009).
Taxonomy of educational objectives
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a useful guide for developing a comprehensive list of instructional
objectives.
A taxonomy is primarily useful in identifying the types of learning outcomes that should be considered when
developing a comprehensive list of objectives for classroom instruction.
Benjamin S. Bloom (1948, as cited by Gabuyo, 2011), a well-known psychologist and educator, took the initiative
to lead in formulating and classifying the goals and objectives of the educational processes.
Three domains of educational activities were determined: the cognitive domain, affective domain, and the
psychomotor domain.
Cognitive Domain
Outcomes of mental activity such as memorizing, reading, problem solving, analyzing, synthesizing and drawing
conclusions.
Affective Domain
Describes learning objectives that emphasize a feeling tone, an emotion, or a degree of acceptance or rejection.
Vary from simple attention to selected phenomena to complex but internally consistent qualities of character and
conscience.
It refers to the persons’ awareness and internalization of objects and simulations, it focuses on the emotions of the
learners.
Psychomotor Domain
Characterized by the progressive levels of behaviors from observation to mastery of physical skills (Simpson, 1972
as cited by Esmane, 2011).
This includes physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill areas.
It focused on the physical and kinesthetic skills of the learner.
This domain is characterized by the progressive levels of behaviors from observation to mastery of physical skills.
Learning objectives (cognitive objective)
The students can determine the cause and effect of the air pollution.
The students identify the physical environment by using their sense, questioning, sharing ideas and simple cause
and effect relationships.
The students can give examples of physical environment using their sense, questioning, sharing and the cause and
effect.
The students can understand immediate physical environment by collecting and recording.
The students can collect data.
The students can classify the cause and effect of climate change.
The students can identify cause and effect of climate change.
The students can describe the simple cause and effect of natural hazards in the physical environment.
Learning objectives (psychomotor objective)
 The students can draw a table includes making testing predictions, collecting and recording data to conduct guided
investigation.
The students can collect and record data using his physical movements.
The students can finish their research because they are coordinating.
The students can solve a problem by conducting a research.
The students can develop and improve their skills in different field by applying the steps for conducting
investigation.
The students can do a strategy to organize the following series steps to investigate.
The students can coordinate from the people around the area to provide information to support the following series
step of investigating.
Learning objectives (affective objective)
The students can create a poem, a song or a short story about vegetables.
The students can make a video presentation about proper care of animals.
The pupils will be able to appreciate the importance of cells.
The pupils will be able to give value to an existing living.
The students can have a deep understanding and appreciation among the differences of living organisms.
The students can value, be familiar, considerate according to their weaknesses of each living species.
The students can provide scientific achievement of different species in safest process.
Taxonomy of educational objectives
Bloom and other educators work on cognitive domain, established and completed the hierarchy of educational
objectives in 1956, it was called as the Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain.
Criteria for selecting appropriate objectives
The objectives should include all important outcomes of the course or subject matter.
The objectives should be in harmony with the content standards of the state and with the general goals of the
school.
The objectives should be in harmony with the sound principles of learning.
The objectives should be realistic in terms of the abilities of the students, time and the available facilities.
Clear statement of instructional objectives
To obtain a clear statement of instructional objectives you should define the objectives in two steps:
First, state the general objectives of instruction as intended learning outcomes.
Second, list under each objective a sample of the specific types of performance that the students should be able to
demonstrate when they have achieved the objective (Gronlund, 2000as cited by Gronlund, Linn, & Miller, 2009).
This procedure should result in the statement of general objectives and specific learning outcomes.
Matching test items to instructional objectives
When constructing test items, always remember that they should match the instructional objectives.
If a test developer followed this basic rule, then the test is ensured to have content validity.
Always remember that your goal is to assess the achievement of the students, hence, do not ask tricky questions.
To measure the achievement of the students ask them to demonstrate a mastery of skills that was specified in the
conditions in the instructional objectives.
Types of Objectives
Educational Objectives – stretch from objectives for specific curriculum areas (often subjects of programs) at
certain grade levels to specific outcomes of classroom instruction
Brown and Green: instructional objectives should clearly indicate some observable or quantifiable student behavior
Posner and Rudnisky: call instructional objectives “intended learning outcomes,” which they define as statements of
precisely what the student is to learn (e.g. which facts, concepts, and techniques).
Behavioral Objectives – students can show that they have acquired particular skills or knowledge
Mager: objectives must describe:
1) the behaviour that will indicate a learner has achieved the objective;
2) the condition or situation imposed on the learner when he or she demonstrates achievement; and
3) the minimum proficiency level that will be acceptable.
BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY
Lorin Anderson a former student of Bloom together with Krathwolh, revised the Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain in
the mid-90s in order to fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives.
There are two major changes:
- the names in the six categories from noun to active verb
- the arrangement of the order of the last two highest levels

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

The Cognitive Domain (intellect – knowledge – ‘think’) by Benjamin Bloom

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy – intended to address the changing nature of education and a more relevant
structure for the 21st century

Psychomotor (based on Simpson)

Psychomotor (based on Dave)

Psychomotor (based on Harrow)

Psychomotor (MIXED/COMBINED)

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

The Psychomotor Domain – (physical – skills – ‘do’)
Affective Domain (Attitude)

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

The Affective Domain – (feeling, emotions – attitude – ‘feel’)

Lecture Notes in CPE105: Prof. Arnold B. Asotigue

Faculty. Department of Secondary Teaching
College of Education MSU Main Campus, Marawi City