Distinguishing Performance Objectives from Goals and Activities

Performance objectives should not be confused with goals or activities. But what are instructional or organizational goals? What are learner or trainer activities? How do they differ from performance objectives? Let us begin the chapter by answering these questions.

What Are Instructional and Organizational Goals?

1. Instructional goals are simply expressions of the general results desired from instruction. Unlike performance objectives, they are not measurable. In a famous explanation, Mager (1997a) calls them warm fuzzies because they sound desirable (warm) but are so vague (fuzzy) that achieving them is unclear. In fact, different people may assign their own meanings or significance to them. Examples of instructional goals are easy enough to point out and include such lofty efforts as “improving customer service,” “improving quality,” “increasing profitability,” and “increasing learner understanding.” However, they are warm fuzzies, as Mager uses that term, because they do not clarify precisely what a learner must do or how a learner should perform.
2. Organizational goals are results desired from an organization. Often included as part of an organization's formal mission statement, they articulate philosophy, embody management values, and imply an organization's general direction. Their achievement is rarely restricted to a specific time. Nor do goals lend themselves, as organizational objectives do, to specific measurement methods. As expressions about an organization, their link to individual job performance is often unclear. Examples of organizational goals include “serving the community,” “maintaining a safe and productive workplace for employees,” and “making a reasonable return on investment.” To become measurable, organizational goals must be translated into organizational objectives. To focus on individuals, organizational goals must be translated into terms that are directly related to what employees do and how well they do it.

What Are Learner-Trainer Activities?

A learner activity refers to what a learner is doing during a planned learning experience. For example, “listening to a lecture”—admittedly a passive activity because it implies more action by a trainer than by a learner—is a learner activity. Another example is “answering the questions at the end of a case study.” Activities emphasize behaviors; in contrast, performance objectives emphasize results. A trainer activity refers to what a trainer is doing during a planned learning experience. For instance, one trainer activity is “defining terms.” Other examples include lecturing, introducing a learning activity, showing a videotape, or passing out evaluations. Trainers sometimes focus on what they should do during a learning experience rather than on what learners can do by the end of instruction.

How Do Performance Objectives Differ from Goals and Activities?

A performance objective is an expression of a desired result of a learning experience. It differs from a performance goal in that it is measurable and is an expression of what should be achieved. It differs from activities in that it describes desired results, not behaviors leading to results.

Deriving Performance Objectives from Goal Analysis and Task or Content Analysis

Instructional designers can derive performance objectives from goal analysis, carried out with instructional and organizational goals and learner-trainer activities, or from task or content analysis results. But what is goal analysis, and how is it carried out? How are the results of task and content analysis used to write performance objectives? Let us turn to these questions next.

Defining Goal Analysis

Goal analysis is a means of transforming laudable but otherwise vague desires into specific and measurable targets for learner accomplishment (Mager 1997a). Goal analysis is appropriate to use on those many occasions when instructional designers are approached by their clients to work miracles. Clients often speak in terms of vague and ill-defined goals, and instructional designers must use methods such as performance analysis to decide what kind of performance problem exists. Goal analysis is a later step, intended to determine precisely what measurable results are desired from an instructional design solution.

Performing Goal Analysis

To perform goal analysis, instructional designers should carry out five simple steps:

1. Identify the goal, the warm fuzzy, and write it down. Clarify the vague goal that instruction intends to achieve.
2. Write down examples of what people are saying or doing when they are behaving in a way corresponding to the goal. In short, identify behaviors associated with the goal.
3. Sort out unrelated items and polish the list developed in Step 2. Eliminate duplications not clearly associated with achieving the goal.
4. Describe precisely what learners should be doing to demonstrate goal achievement. Statements of this kind become performance objectives.
5. Test the performance objectives to ensure that they are linked to the goal and, when enacted, will lead to the desired instructional results.

These five steps can help convert otherwise vague instructional or organizational goals—or learner or trainer activities—into precise and measurable performance objectives.

A simple description of the process should clarify it. Suppose a team of instructional designers has been assigned the daunting task of “improving customer service.” (Clients sometimes speak vaguely when they identify perceptions of learner needs.)

First, the team members would have to make sure the aim is improving customer service, not some other goal. They would do that by analyzing the performance problem and assessing learner needs. Second—assuming a justifiable instructional need was identified—the team members would list specific employee behaviors associated with effective customer service. They would ask these questions: What will people be doing when they are serving customers effectively? What will they be saying? Examples of appropriate behaviors might include answering customer phone calls quickly and courteously, approaching customers politely when they arrive in a store to look at merchandise, and identifying customers' problems or needs quickly and accurately. (These are just a few examples of behaviors associated with the goal.) Note that even these behaviors can be made more specific if the instructional designers described precisely what an employee does to “act courteously” or “identify customers' problems.” And the examples just given could easily swell if the team members applied various methods of creative problem solving to identify more behaviors and worker statements associated with “improved customer service.” Once the previous steps have been completed, the instructional designers should then eliminate duplicative behaviors from the list. Finally, team members would write performance objectives and try them out to see whether learners who achieved them would indeed demonstrate “improved customer service” as defined by the clients.

Converting Results of Task or Content Analysis into Performance Objectives

Goal analysis is just one of two primary methods used to identify the specific results desired from instruction. The second, and perhaps more commonly used, method is conversion of task or content analysis results into performance objectives.

The results of task analysis reveal how work is, or should be, performed. As we have seen, the results of content analysis also create a logical organizational scheme for subject matter that can be used as a starting point for developing instruction. But there is quite a difference between doing the work—or organizing subject matter—and engineering instruction that will produce learners who can do the work or demonstrate the desired knowledge. For this reason, it is not enough just to analyze how the work is done or how subject matter can be logically organized. Some consideration must also be given to the related, but different, issue of how to produce the desired results of instruction.

Instructional designers convert the results of task or content analysis into specific performance objectives by

1. Establishing instructional purpose.
2. Classifying learning tasks.
3. Analyzing learning tasks.

These steps are depicted in Figure 8.1.

First, instructional designers should establish purpose. Purpose means the primary reason for a planned instructional experience. There are typically four choices: (1) increasing learners' knowledge, (2) changing attitudes or feelings, (3) building skills, or (4) combining one or more of the other three choices.

Second, instructional designers should classify learning tasks by examining each work task and asking this question: What kind of instruction will be necessary to instruct people to perform this task or demonstrate this knowledge? Only four answers to this question are possible. Instruction can be designed for (1) knowledge, (2) feelings, (3) skills, or (4) some combination of the first three. Here are a few examples of ways to classify tasks:

Instructional designers should bear in mind that the appropriate way to carry out the instructional design process depends on the results to be achieved. Classifying work tasks into learning tasks is important because it can suggest the best ways to design instruction that is intended to bring about particular results. Of course, more than one classification scheme for work or for learning tasks or content has been devised.

For example, in a classic treatment, Gagné, Briggs, and Wager (1992) distinguish among intellectual skills, cognitive skills, verbal information, motor skills, and attitude. As they define them, intellectual skills are equated with the ability to read, write, and compute, as well as capabilities needed to perform tasks in special occupational fields. Cognitive skills underlie learning how to learn, that is, knowing how to get to the heart of problems. Verbal information is linked to summarizing or stating a principle. “You can usually spot a verbal information goal by the verb that is used,” explain Dick and Carey (1990, 34). “Often the learner must state, list, or describe something.” Motor skill is associated with body movement of any kind, ranging from moving a pen to using a computer keyboard. Attitude means a persistent set of beliefs. Since each of these learning tasks is intended to evoke a different result, each calls for different instructional strategies.

The third step is to analyze learning tasks, a process called learning task analysis (Gagné, Briggs, and Wager 1992). Not to be confused with work task analysis, its purpose is to identify prerequisite knowledge. A prerequisite describes what learners should know before participating in instruction. Instructional designers use three methods to identify prerequisites: (1) learning hierarchies, (2) cluster analysis, and (3) procedural analysis (Dick and Carey 1990).

Instructional designers develop a learning hierarchy by repeatedly asking this question of each work task and subtask: What does a learner need to know to do that? (Davis, Alexander, and Yelon 1974). This process is called hierarchical analysis. To cite a simple example: to fill an automobile's tank with gasoline, a learner must first know what an automobile is, what a gasoline tank is, where the gasoline tank is located, where gasoline may be purchased, how to remove the gas cap, and so on. Each task implies a learning hierarchy. Hierarchical analysis is applied to intellectual, psychomotor, and attitudinal skills—but not to verbal information. To perform hierarchical analysis, instructional designers should simply flowchart the relationship between the work task and the required prerequisite knowledge. They then develop performance objectives from the hierarchy.

1. 1. Cluster analysis is appropriately used with verbal information or attitudes. It is particularly useful in developing performance objectives from results of content analysis and is based on categories of information. For instance, categories might include the number of letters in the alphabet (a fact) or the number of component parts in a social theory. (A social theory is a principle based on opinions of various experts.) To perform a cluster analysis, instructional designers begin by drawing a chart. They place an instructional goal at the top. They then list below it “the major categories of information that are implied by the goal” (Dick and Carey 1990, 58). Instructional designers should try to be creative as they categorize information, but they should remember that one aim is to be as complete as possible. They must succeed in developing a scheme to organize the information. Quite often this process can economize the instructional effort.
2. 2. Procedural analysis is the process of identifying what learners should know to perform one task or a series of related tasks (a procedure). It is appropriately applied to developing performance objectives for intellectual skills, motor skills, and attitudes. But it does not work with verbal information, for which no “step-by-step list of activities” can be created. To perform procedural analysis, instructional designers should first identify an instructional goal and then flowchart steps in the procedure. For each step (task) in the procedure, they should answer this question: What must the learner know, do, or feel to perform? They should then express the answer by stating precise performance objectives.

Linking Work Activities and Performance Objectives

Performance objectives must always be tied to work activities. However, they may be linked to different expressions of work activities, for instance, as work tasks are presently performed or as they could be more efficiently and effectively performed at present or in the future. Performance objectives can also be linked to subject matter as related to job performance. When learners achieve performance objectives by the end of a planned learning experience, they should be able to perform in the application environment, or at least be familiar with the verbal information on which work performance depends. Instructional designers generally direct their attention to demonstrating learner change by the end of instruction, not on the learner's return to the application environment, though that view has been changing.

To demonstrate achievement of performance objectives in the application environment rather than merely at the end of instruction, they would probably have to devise more than one type of performance objective. Indeed, Briggs (1977) has identified four types of performance objectives. Each reflects a different time span. But instructional designers have seldom expressed performance objectives in terms of on-the-job changes; rather, the traditional focus has been on end-of-instruction changes. On-the-job change requires instructional designers to consider more than just what learners will be able to do: it also requires consideration of what the organization and the learners' supervisors must do to support the learners' application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Stating Objectives in Performance Terms

Instructional designers should describe the desired results of instruction in performance-based terms. They should be able to classify the type of performance objectives that must be written and then state performance objectives that are directly or indirectly linked to work requirements. The objectives should thus clarify, in measurable terms, what learners should be able to do at the end of instruction, how well they should be able to do it, and what conditions have to exist or equipment must be available for them to exhibit the performance. To write performance objectives, however, instructional designers must have a task or concept analysis and a learner analysis.

Classifying Performance Objectives

Instructional designers begin the process of stating performance objectives by identifying the kinds of objectives that must be written. Referring to the task classification prepared earlier in the instructional design process, they should clarify whether each objective will focus on knowledge, skills, or attitudes.

The most commonly used classification scheme for performance objectives was first described in 1956. That year, Bloom and his colleagues published the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and defined three domains of learning—knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Objectives focused on increasing learner knowledge are called cognitive objectives; objectives focused on changing learners' attitudes are called affective objectives; and objectives focused on building skills are called psychomotor objectives. Knowledge means “facts and information essential to performing a job or task,” skills involve the “ability to behave in ways associated with successful job performance,” and attitudes are “feelings about performance that are voiced to other people.”

Each “domain” of learning consists of increasingly complicated levels, as shown in Figures 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4. Instructional designers begin classifying performance objectives by identifying the level of the domain that they are trying to reach. When they have done that for the end results desired from a planned learning experience, they are ready to begin writing performance objectives.

Describing Parts of Performance Objectives

Performance objectives make tangible a vision of what learners should know, do, or feel at the end of a planned instructional experience. They should contain statements about at least two of the following three components (Mager 1988):

1. Performance
2. Criterion
3. Condition

Other components could also be included in performance objectives. They may include targeted participants (Mager 1988). They may even include a description of how instruction will be carried out (Mager 1988).

The performance component of an objective describes how a learner will demonstrate proficiency. It is an activity or behavior to be learned during instruction and demonstrated afterward. A statement of performance always begins with a verb, and the choice of verb is typically linked to the type of task to be learned.

The criterion component of an objective describes, in measurable terms, just how well participants must perform to demonstrate competence (Mager 1988). It is worth emphasizing that a criterion must be measurable. Measures may be expressed by quantity, quality, cost, time, or customer requirements. Criteria may be derived from past work practices, present performance needs, future organizational plans, academic and government research, customer-focused research, benchmarking with best-in-class organizations, and other sources. They should be tied to historical performance standards or future organizational plans.

There are two different kinds of criteria: process and product (Blank 1982). A process criterion describes how well the learner should perform the task; a product criterion describes the product of the task. Examples of process criteria include “following company procedures,” “conforming to the organization's safety practices,” and “within ten minutes.” Product criteria include any of the following: “to the client's satisfaction,” “with fewer than three errors,” and “ready for sale.”

To establish criteria, instructional designers should ask questions such as the following:

• How has competent work performance historically been identified through measurable means?
• How well must the work task associated with this performance objective be performed for the organization to meet its present competitive needs?
• How can these organizational needs be expressed as measurable results to be achieved?
• How well must the work task be performed in the future to help the organization achieve its strategic business plans?
• How can performance be measured?
• How will the consequences of task performance be measured?

In some cases, there will be a difference between existing and possible criteria. In other words, workers can simply perform better than they have been performing. One way that instructional designers can gauge the possibility for productivity improvement is to subtract the difference between the work output of the highest and lowest performers. It too can serve as the basis for criteria in performance objectives.

The condition component of a performance objective explains what working conditions must exist when the performer demonstrates his or her knowledge, skill, or ability (Mager 1988). Conditions may include essential or desirable situations in which performance is necessary. Condition statements usually begin with the word “given,” as in the following phrase: “given a ruler, the learner will be able to measure inches.” In this context, “given” means “the learner is provided with some equipment, resources, or information with which to function and cannot perform competently without them.”

Writing Performance Objectives

To write performance objectives, instructional designers should begin with the following sentence or some variation of it: “On completion of instruction, learners should be able to…” They should then list the performance objectives, beginning each phrase with a verb. The portion of the objective that begins with the verb is the performance component. It is usually followed by statements about criterion and condition. Of course, criterion addresses this question: How well should the performance be done? It should always be measurable. The condition component addresses the following question: What equipment or other resources are necessary for the performance to be demonstrated by the learner?

Avoiding Common Mistakes in Writing Performance Objectives

Writing performance objectives is more difficult than it may appear at first blush. Some mistakes are relatively common. They are worth describing so they can be avoided.

1. Avoid making objectives long-winded. Try to make them as concise as possible.
2. Do not use vague language. Words and phrases such as “understand,” “demonstrate familiarity with,” or “know” should usually be avoided because they are vague.
3. Try to avoid descriptions of criteria that are linked to instructor (or supervisor) satisfaction, as in the phrase “will perform to the satisfaction of the instructor.” The reason: performance objectives of this kind lead to arbitrary differences in assessments of learner achievement.
4. Avoid lengthy “laundry lists” of required equipment and other resources when describing the conditions necessary for performance. List only the equipment and other resources that would not be obvious to a reasonable person.