Learning Outcomes

Defining Learning Outcomes

A learn­ing out­come is a state­ment that iden­ti­fies the knowl­edge, skills, and attrib­ut­es stu­dents will learn if they take a course or pro­gram. They are writ­ten with the stu­dent in mind, using clear and plain lan­guage. Since learn­ing is unpre­dictable and not guar­an­teed, and each stu­dent learns at their own speed, learn­ing out­comes serve as ‘guide­posts’ for both the teacher and stu­dent. The teacher uses learn­ing out­comes to help design learn­ing expe­ri­ences and to offer guid­ance to stu­dents as they progress through­out those expe­ri­ences. The stu­dent uses learn­ing out­comes as an indi­ca­tion of where they are head­ing and how they will be expect­ed to demon­strate learn­ing.

Learn­ing Out­comes:

  • are direct state­ments about intended/anticipated stu­dent learn­ing
  • include the depth of learn­ing expect­ed by the end of a course/program
  • are guide­posts, reflect­ing the fact that learn­ing is not pre­dictable
  • include the knowl­edge, skills, and val­ues required by stu­dents to demon­strate learn­ing of core con­cepts

Learning Outcomes vs. Objectives

Although out­comes and objec­tives are some­times used inter­change­ably, it’s use­ful to under­stand how these two con­cepts are slight­ly dif­fer­ent. The box­es below out­lines the key dif­fer­ences between learn­ing out­comes and learn­ing objec­tives.

Learning Outcomes

  • Are state­ments about antic­i­pat­ed achieve­ments from stu­dents
  • Are more stu­dent-cen­tered and describe what the learn­er should learn

Learn­ing out­comes are what is hoped stu­dents will learn along their jour­ney and are often pre­cise, spe­cif­ic, and mea­sur­able.

Examples of Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course stu­dents will be able to:

  • Crit­i­cal­ly eval­u­ate the con­nec­tion between human rights and legal def­i­n­i­tions of what is meant by ‘being human’.
  • Describe four dimen­sions of cul­ture and ana­lyze the effects of those dimen­sions on com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Learning Objectives

  • Are often writ­ten from a teacher’s per­spec­tive
  • Are typ­i­cal­ly writ­ten in terms of an instructor’s teach­ing inten­tions
  • Indi­cate what con­tent a teacher intends to cov­er through instruc­tion, cur­ric­u­la, pro­grams or activ­i­ties

Learn­ing objec­tives are focused on spe­cif­ic types of per­for­mances that stu­dents are expect­ed to demon­strate.

Examples of Learning Objectives

  • This course will present dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives through the explo­ration of his­tor­i­cal data and pre­sen­ta­tions by guest speak­ers, to explore con­cepts across time and space of what it means to be human.
  • This course will intro­duce key dimen­sions of cul­ture and explore how these dimen­sions influ­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ to teach­ing and learn­ing. At the same time, when stu­dents sign up for a course, they want an idea of what they will learn. Equal­ly, as instruc­tors, we ben­e­fit from hav­ing a road map to guide us. Learn­ing out­comes are a tool we can use to describe to stu­dents the desired learn­ing des­ti­na­tion with an indi­ca­tion of:

  • how they will trav­el
  • what they’ll be expect­ed to do along the way
  • and where they’ll end up

NIC course out­lines are required to include a list of course learn­ing out­comes

One way of approach­ing writ­ing a learn­ing out­come is to think of it as com­prised of three parts:

  1. Action Verb (Per­for­mance)

Con­sid­er­ing what action might be involved in the learn­ing out­come helps with fig­ur­ing out what you want stu­dents ‘to do.’ An action verb is usu­al­ly both mea­sur­able and observ­able.

  1. Learn­ing State­ment (Con­di­tion)

A learn­ing state­ment (con­di­tion) that describes the learn­ing to be demon­strat­ed (e.g., in a writ­ten report, evi­dence based).

  1. Broad Criterion/Criteria

Broad cri­te­ri­on / cri­te­ria that give con­text / cri­te­ria for an accept­able per­for­mance (e.g., four dimen­sions of, the con­nec­tion between…).

Key Parts Example: By the end of the course, students should be able to develop a written seven-step plan for undertaking a small research project. Action verb is 'develop'. Criteria are 'written' and it will include seven steps. Learning Statement is 'framed around a research project'.

While learn­ing out­comes are writ­ten at the begin­ning of the course design process, we also ‘inher­it’ exist­ing cours­es. Well-writ­ten learn­ing out­comes keep the stu­dents front and cen­ter and are SMART:

  • Spe­cif­ic – are clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed and con­cise
  • Mea­sur­able – can be demon­strat­ed and / or are observ­able
  • Achiev­able – reflect the lev­el of the course
  • Rel­e­vant – relate to the ‘real world’
  • Time­bound – doable with­in the time frame of the course

To begin:

  1. One place to start is to select an action word. Bloom’s Tax­on­o­my and action verbs are a good place to begin. For exam­ple: iden­ti­fy, ana­lyze, clas­si­fy etc. Or take a look at LaFever’s Sam­ple Verbs and Pro­gres­sion.
  2. Select the sub­ject con­tent to which the action applies. For exam­ple: Iden­ti­fy the key steps in con­duct­ing an assess­ment.
  3. Decide whether the learn­ing out­come needs a lev­el of achieve­ment (e.g., ‘with no mis­takes’ or ‘effec­tive­ly’) and / or a con­di­tion of per­for­mance (e.g., ‘inde­pen­dent­ly’). For exam­ple: Inde­pen­dent­ly [con­di­tion] iden­ti­fy [action verb] the cor­rect order [lev­el of achieve­ment] of the key steps in con­duct­ing an assess­ment[sub­ject con­tent]. Not all learn­ing out­comes require this third step.

How they relate to learning outcomes

Lev­els and process­es of learn­ing have been clas­si­fied in var­i­ous ways. These clas­si­fi­ca­tions (tax­onomies) of learn­ing help with writ­ing learn­ing out­comes because they pro­vide a frame­work for artic­u­lat­ing what you want stu­dents to learn.

There is no one right way of writ­ing learn­ing out­comes, and no one ‘best’ clas­si­fi­ca­tion of learn­ing. Choose the clas­si­fi­ca­tion that makes sense to you and what you are teach­ing, and work from there.

For more infor­ma­tion on dif­fer­ent clas­si­fi­ca­tions, click on: Clas­si­fi­ca­tions of Learn­ing [PDF]

Writ­ing learn­ing out­comes is a process and isn’t just about choos­ing the right verb. A learn­ing out­come helps explain the demon­stra­ble actions of stu­dents to pro­vide evi­dence they have learned. In some cas­es, this can include more abstract actions (e.g., reflect on) and in these cas­es, think­ing about how you will sup­port stu­dents in demon­strat­ing that ‘reflec­tion’ will help you write that spe­cif­ic learn­ing out­come.

As a start­ing point, the fol­low­ing verbs or phras­es do not always pro­vide an activ­i­ty that stu­dents can demon­strate when con­sid­er­ing cog­ni­tive, psy­cho motor and affec­tive activ­i­ties:

  • under­stand, know, appre­ci­ate, com­pre­hend, real­ize, be aware of, be famil­iar with, real­ize
  • learn, cov­er, study, gain knowl­edge of, become acquaint­ed with

If it’s not clear how you would mea­sure the learn­ing out­come, rewrite it so it’s clear­er what you are expect­ing stu­dents to learn, do etc.

Below are some sim­ple exam­ples of exist­ing learn­ing out­comes improved.

Vague / Hard to Measure

Better

Under­stand osmo­sis

Accu­rate­ly explain the process of osmo­sis

Study trigonom­e­try

Apply trigonom­e­try to solve mea­sure­ment prob­lems

Be aware of why the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion hap­pened

Crit­i­cal­ly ana­lyze the events that direct­ly led to the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion

To show you how to move from an incom­plete to a bet­ter to a good learn­ing out­come, see the exam­ples below.

Exam­ple 1

Incomplete

Stu­dents will be able to write a lab report

(While a stu­dent knows they have to write a lab report, they have no idea how they will know if they’ve suc­ceed­ed, as there are no cri­te­ria)

Better

Stu­dents will be able to write a lab report fol­low­ing the institution’s lab report for­mat.

(added cri­te­ri­on – fol­low­ing the spe­cif­ic for­mat of the insti­tu­tion)

Good

At the end of the lab por­tion of this course, stu­dents should be able to write a lab report fol­low­ing the institution’s report for­mat.

(added the con­di­tion under which the behav­iour will occur – at the end of the lab por­tion of the course’)

Exam­ple 2

Incomplete

Stu­dents will use tech­nol­o­gy effec­tive­ly.

(This is vague – what tech­nol­o­gy? What will they do with the tech­nol­o­gy, and what does ‘effec­tive­ly’ look like? )

Better

Stu­dents will uti­lize word pro­cess­ing, spread­sheets, and pre­sen­ta­tion graph­ics to pre­pare their final busi­ness report and project pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

(Stu­dents know ‘which tech­nol­o­gy’ they’ll learn in the course)

Good

By the end of this busi­ness course, stu­dents will be able to effec­tive­ly use word pro­cess­ing, spread­sheets, and pre­sen­ta­tion graph­ics to pre­pare their final busi­ness report and project pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

(with the added con­di­tion under which the behav­iour is occur­ring – through prepa­ra­tion of the final busi­ness report and project – stu­dents know exact­ly what they will learn)

Fig­ur­ing out how to assess stu­dents can be chal­leng­ing. There are var­i­ous con­sid­er­a­tions, includ­ing the tim­ing of assess­ment, the num­ber of stu­dents involved, and exter­nal con­straints (e.g., guide­lines of provin­cial gov­ern­ing bod­ies), etc.

Anoth­er con­sid­er­a­tion is how to align learn­ing out­comes with assess­ment. Align­ment means ensur­ing there is a direct con­nec­tion between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of assess­ment. For exam­ple, if we want to under­stand stu­dents’ under­stand­ing of a con­cept, we might decide that ask­ing stu­dents to apply the con­cept to a case study might pro­vide a more accu­rate assess­ment of stu­dent learn­ing than ask­ing them to respond to a mul­ti­ple-choice quiz. On the oth­er hand, to assess knowl­edge that needs to be mem­o­rized to pro­vide foun­da­tion­al knowl­edge for high­er-lev­el thinking/knowledge appli­ca­tion, a mul­ti­ple-choice test might be the best choice.

The advan­tages of align­ing assess­ment with learn­ing out­comes include:

  • greater accu­ra­cy in iden­ti­fy­ing what stu­dents have learnt and the areas in which they need fur­ther sup­port
  • increased engage­ment of stu­dents in the assess­ment process
  • oppor­tu­ni­ties to use meth­ods beyond timed exams that are hard to employ fair­ly in an online envi­ron­ment
  • poten­tial for few­er issues relat­ing to aca­d­e­m­ic integri­ty