Writing Objectives

As part of my individual development plan (IDP) at work I tasked myself with learning how to write objectives. I worked with a colleague of mine (to protect the innocent) we will call him Utah, on a recent project and decided to use him as a resource to help me complete this portion of my IDP. I felt the best way to document the interview would be on this blog because not only is it funny but I learned a lot You must know that we started the conversation with how we write objectives at our company and then we transitioned to how he writes objectives to these guideline or constraints.

First of all we defined objectives as observable/measurable behaviors that can bridge the gap between desired performance and actual performance.

Examples that were used were based on his 6 year old son (here is where the humor comes in)

• Zipping up your pants
• tying your shoes
• peeing on the floor

The gap that we need to figure out is why are these behaviors being performed or not. We focused the rest of the conversation on peeing on the floor.

You need to ask what are things that can be done to bridge the gap and stop the behavior of peeing on the floor like:

• aming
• what are the the problems associated with peeing on the floor
• problem with mom slipping on the floor when it is wet

Back to the 2 types of objectives:

• Enabling = goal "peeing in the toilet"
• Terminal = actual objective "aim straight while peeing in the toilet"

When writing the above objectives first consider the behavior then look for resources such as subject matter experts (SME's) to help you establish what the objectives may be. Schedule a meeting and interview your SME's most of the time you will get lots of information that will help you successfully write your objectives. From the dialogue you will get many goal statements or enabling objectives you need to make sure to take the conversation a step further to determine who to meet your enabling objectives with your terminal ones. Once you have considered the information from the SME's move on to the actual objective writing. Utah provided me a resource that he created based on his knowledge of Bloom's taxonomy which with his permission I provided below:

Bloom's Taxonomy
Level 1: Knowledge
Competence	Information gathering Remembering The recall of specifics, processes
Skills	Recall of information Knowledge of dates, events, places Knowledge of major ideas
Verbs	Arrange, collect, describe, define, draw, duplicate, examine, identify, label, list, locate, memorize, name, order, quote, recognize, recall, recite, repeat, reproduce, select, show, state, tell, tabulate, who, when, where, write
Questions	Who? What? When? Where? How? Describe
Level 2: Comprehension
Competence	Understanding of information The "knows" the material and can use it. Yet they cannot relate it to other material or see its broader implications The lowest level of understanding
Skills	Understanding information Grasp meaning Translate knowledge into new context Interpret facts, compare, contrast Order, group, infer causes Predict consequences
Verbs	Associate, change, classify, compare, confirm, contrast, defend, describe, differentiate, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, extend, generalize, illustrate, indicate, infer, interpret, locate, match, paraphrase, predict, relate, report, restate, review, select, summarize, transform, translate
Questions	Retell
Level 3: Application
Competence	Making use of knowledge The use of abstractions (for example, principles, ideas, theories) in particular and concrete situations
Skills	Use information Use methods, concepts, theories in new situations Solve problems using required skills or knowledge
Verbs	Apply, calculate, change, choose, classify, collect, complete, demonstrate, discover, dramatize, draw, employ, examine, experiment, illustrate, interpret, make, model, modify, operate, paint, practice, prepare, produce, relate, report, schedule, show, sketch, solve, use, write
Questions	Why is it significant?
Level 4: Analysis
Competence	Separate knowledge The breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements such that the relations among the ideas are made explicit
Skills	Seeing patterns Organization of parts Recognition of hidden meanings Identification of components
Verbs	Analyze, appraise, arrange, calculate, categorize, classify, compare, connect, construct, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, divide, examine, experiment, explain, infer, investigate, order, point out, question, research, select, separate, sub-divide, survey, text, take a part
Questions	What are the parts or features? Classify according to x Outline/diagram How does x compare/contrast with y? What evidence can you list for x?
Level 5: Synthesis
Competence	Linking knowledge Working with parts and combining them in such a way as to constitute a structure
Skills	Use old ideas to create new ones Generalize from given facts Relate knowledge from several areas Predict, draw conclusions
Verbs	Add to, arrange, assemble, collect, combine, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, generalize, hypothesize, integrate, invent, manage, modify, organize, plan, prepare, produce, propose, rearrange, rewrite, role-play, set up, substitute, what if, write
Questions	What would you predict/infer from y? What ideas can you add to x? How would you create/design a new z? What might happen if you combined w? What solutions would you suggest for x?
Level 6: Evaluation
Competence	Judging the outcome Judgments about the value of material and methods for the given purposes
Skills	Compare and discriminate between ideas Assess value of theories, presentations Make choices based on reasoned argument Verify value of evidence Recognize subjectivity
Verbs	Appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, convince, core, criticize, critique, defend, decide, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, grade, judge, predict, measure, rank, rate, recommend, relate, select, solve, summarize, support, test, value, weigh
Questions	Do you agree? What do you think about? What is the most important? Place the following in order of priority How would you decide about What criteria would you use to assess z?

He advised that he keeps an exact copy of the tool above at his desk and looks at it frequently when writing objectives. He did make it very clear to me that when writing your objectives it is important to keep your assessment in mind. If you cannot asses the objectives appropriately then you will need to write them in such away that you can. Thinking back to our situation with the 6 year old peeing on the floor we considered some of the following objectives at different levels in the taxonomy.

Level 1

Identify the importance of peeing in the toilet

List reasons why it is important to pee in the toilet

Level 3

Interpret mom's reaction when you pee on the floor

Level 5

Pretend you are mom and you pee on the floor. How would you react?

Level 6

Which is worse soda or pee on the floor.

From Utah's experience 90 percent of the objectives that he has seen in a corporate environment range from level's 1-3. When writing your objectives you need to make sure that you try to use some from each level but it is important to remember if your enabling objective is a needs a level 3 result then your terminal objectives need to be level 1 then 2. Utah also mentioned that it is important to make note of the level that you are using while writing your objectives so you can balance them out.

*Remember the higher level objectives are harder to asses whether it is for instructor lead or distance education.

Some additional words of advice when writing objectives is:

• look at other objectives before writing your own
• work with the SME's to develop them
• prepare for review once they are written (come with thick skin)

Overall this was a good conversation I was able to take many of the teachings that he provide during the interview into refection on past experiences. I hope you are able to get some valuable tips too.