OUTCOMES-BASED EDUCATION

(OBE)
Source: Outcomes-Based Education:
Critical Issues and Answers

Dr. William G. Spady

(Father of OBE)
What does
Outcomes-Based
Education (OBE)
really mean?
 OUTCOMES-BASED
EDUCATION (OBE) means
clearly focusing and organizing
everything in an educational
system around what is essential
for all students to be able to do
successfully at the end of their
learning experiences.
This means starting
with a clear picture of
what is important for
students to be able to
do.
This means that the
school should organize
the curriculum,
instruction, and
assessment to make
sure this learning
ultimately happens.
The Keys to having
an OB System
1. Developing a clear set
of learning outcomes
(objectives) around
which all of the system’s
components can be
focused.
2. Establishing the conditions
and opportunities within
the system that enable and
encourage all students to
achieve those essential
outcomes.
What exactly are OUTCOMES?
Outcomes are clear
learning results that
students demonstrate
at the end of significant
learning experiences.
Outcomes are what
learners can actually
do with what they
know and have
learned.
Outcomes are
tangible
(concrete/real/substantial)
application of what
has been learned.
This means that
OUTCOMES are actions
and performances that
embody and reflect learner
competence in using
content, information, ideas,
and tools successfully.
OUTCOMES involve
actual doing, rather
than just knowing or a
variety of other purely
mental process.
When defining and developing
outcomes, educators must use
observable action verbs-
describe, explain, design, or
produce- rather than vague or
hidden non-demonstration
process like know, understand,
believe, and think.
Example:
Intended Learning Outcome (ILO):
Explain the purpose of a lesson plan
in teaching.
This outcome means that – to be
successful, a learner is expected to
develop both the competence of
explaining and the knowledge on
the purpose of lesson plan.
Such ILO is asking for 2 things:

1. Students should have the ability

or skill in talking/explaining/
expressing orally or in writing.
2. Students should have content
knowledge on the purpose of
lesson plan.
Another Example:

ILO: In the course of the lesson, the

learners are expected to:

Compare and contrast Afro-Asian

and British-American cuisines.
This ILO is asking for 2 things:

1. Students should have the ability/

competence in comparing and
contrasting.
2. Students should have knowledge
on both the Afro-Asian and
British-American cuisines.
ILO: In the course of the lesson, the
students are expected to:

Create a concept map on

communicative strategies in
teaching the 4 Fundamental
Operations in Mathematics for
Grade 2.
ILO:

Write an essay on
Environmental Stewardship.
Create your own ILO using the following
verbs:

Discuss Explain
Perform Practice
Manipulate Draw
Produce Compute
Compose Arrange
Connect Illustrate
OUTCOMES occur at or
after the end of a learning
experience- thus, they
are called ULTIMATE
RESULTS or EXIT
OUTCOME.
This means that an OUTCOME
is not a collection or average of
previous learning experiences,
but a manifestation of what
learners can do once they have
had and compelled all of those
experiences.
How exactly is being
“outcomes-based” different
from what schools have
always done?
1. Outcomes-based systems
build everything on a
clearly defined framework
of exit outcomes.
-Curriculum, instructional
strategies, assessments,
and performance
standards are developed
and implemented to
facilitate key outcomes.
In OBE, curriculum,
instruction, and assessment
should be viewed as flexible
and alterable means for
accomplishing clearly defined
learning ends.
In contrast, traditional
-

systems already have a

largely predefined
curriculum structure with
an assessment and
credentialing system in
place.
- Curriculum and
assessment systems are
treated as ends in
themselves. (This is
NOT OBE.)
2. Time in an outcome-
based system is used as an
alternative source,
depending on the needs
of teachers and students.
- Time is manipulated to the
best advantage of all learners-
some students learn some
parts of the curriculum
sooner, while others
accomplish those things later.
- In the traditional system, just
the opposite is true. Time define
most system features. The
schedule and the calendar
control student learning and
success. (This is NOT OBE.)
3. In an outcome-based
system, standards are
clearly defined, known
and “criterion-based”
for all students.
- All students potentially are
eligible to reach and receive full
credit of achieving any
performance standards in the
system. There are no quotas on
who can be successful or on
what standards can be pursued.
- In contrast, the traditional
system operates around a
comparative/competitive
approach to standards linked
to a predetermined quota of
possible success.
. Outcomes-based systems
4

focus on increasing
students’ learning and
ultimate performance
abilities to highest possible
levels before they leave
school.
 OBE schools take a “macro” view of the
student learning and achievement.
Mistakes are treated as inevitable steps
along the way to having students
develop, internalize, and demonstrate
high-level performance capabilities.

 OBE work continuously to improve

student learning before graduation.
-The traditional approach keeps on
testing and permanently grading
the students every step of the way
on all segments of the curriculum.
All mistakes become part of the
permanent record, which
accumulates and constantly
reminds students of past errors.
THE OBE PYRAMID
Paradigm

Purposes

Premises
Principles

Practices
OBE Paradigm
Paradigm is a way of viewing and a way
of doing things consistent with that
viewpoint. The OBE paradigm that
shapes decision making and patterns of
concrete action is the viewpoint that
WHAT and WHETHER students learn
successfully is more important than
WHEN and HOW they learn
something.
This orientation to schooling
entails a fundamental shift in
how the system operates- a
shift that makes
“accomplishing results”
more important than simply
“providing services”.
- Implicit in the OBE
paradigm is the desire to
have all students emerge
from the system as
genuinely successful
learners.
OBE’s 2 Purposes
1. Ensuring that all students
are equipped with the
knowledge, competence,
and qualities needed to be
successful after they exit
the educational system.
2. Structuring and
operating schools so that
those outcomes can be
achieved and maximized
for all students.
These two purposes commit
-

the system to focus on the

future performance
abilities of students and to
establish a success-
oriented way of operating.
- These purposes reject the
prevalent notion that students of
differing aptitudes or abilities
should be given different curricula
and learning opportunities,
thereby leaving some of them
permanently behind and others
permanently ahead.
- With these 2 purposes of OBE,
schools are expected to fulfill
their obligation of equipping all
students with the competencies
and qualities needed to face the
challenges beyond the
schoolhouse door.
It implies that schools will
-

have to change how they

have been operating in
order to accomplish this
obligation.
OBE’s 3 Premises
1. All students can learn and succeed, but
not on the same day in the same way.

2. Successful learning promotes even

more successful learning.

3. Schools control the conditions that

directly affect successful school
learning.
OBE’s 4 Principles
1. Clarity of Focus
 Clarity of Focus helps educators establish a
clear picture of the learning they want
students to exhibit in a performance demo.
 Student success on this demo becomes the
top priority for instructional planning and
student assessment.
 The clear picture of the desired outcome is
the starting point for curriculum,
instruction, and assessment planning and
implementation, all of which perfectly
match and align with the targeted outcomes.
2. Expanded Opportunity
-Expanded opportunity requires teacher to give
students more than one chance to learn
important things and to demonstrate that
learning.
- Dimensions of Opportunity:
* Time
* Methods and Modalities
* Operational Principles
* Performance Standards
* Curriculum Access and Structuring
(page 10)
3. High Expectations
-High expectations means
increasing the level of
challenge to which students
are exposed and raising the
standards of acceptable
performance.
Key Dimensions of HE:

• Raising standards of acceptable

performance
• Eliminating Success Quotas
• Increasing Access to High-Level
Curriculum
4. Design down
Design Down means teachers
begin their curriculum and
instructional planning where
they want students to
ultimately end up and build
back from there.
3 Broad Categories of Outcomes:

1. Culminating Outcomes
2. Enabling Outcomes
3. Discrete Outcomes
Culminating Outcomes
-define what the system wants all students
to be able to do when their official learning
experiences are complete.
- synonymous to exit outcomes. (for fully
developed OBE system)
- may also apply to what are called
program outcomes and course
outcomes. (for less developed OBE
system)
Enabling Outcomes
-are the key building blocks on
which those culminating
outcomes depend.
-they are truly essential to
students’ ultimate performance
success
Discrete Outcomes
-are curriculum details that are
“nice to know” but not essential
to a student’s culminating
outcomes.
The Golden Rules of OBE Curriculum
Design
1. Design down from your significant
Culminating Outcomes to establish the
Enabling Outcomes on which they depend.
2. Replace or delete Discrete Outcomes that
are not significant, enabling components
for your culminating outcomes.

(Refer to sample on page 14.)

OBE’s 5 Practices
1. Define Outcomes
2. Design Curriculum
3. Deliver Instruction
4. Document Results
5. Determine Advancement
THANK YOU.