Tying Objectives to Assessment

Once you establish all the behaviors, conditions and degrees of mastery for each objective, you can use them to determine what types of assignments, tests or alternative assessment (e.g. a portfolio) you should use in the course.

The Best Choice...according to the experts

Dwyer 1991 – "If the objective to be taught is at the rule/principle level, [then] the test items [should] have been designed to measure specifically the type of learning specified in the objective and taught in the instruction."

Rationale

After writing learning objectives, you should to think about how to assess the students' achievement of the different learning objectives.

Different learning objectives define the scope and methods of assessment.
Relating different levels of objectives with assessment instruments and all items that are graded will make sure you achieve your specific objectives.
Busy students need to know what they must do to achieve in the course: What are the assignments? What are the projects? How will they be graded

Basic Information:

Relate different levels of objectives to assessment

What you teach should determine how you need to assess learning. You should tie your objectives with your assessment to achieve the expected results (Dwyer, 1991).

Mismatched Content and Assessment

The graphic below (Adapted from Dwyer 1991) shows a mismatch of the objectives, instruction and assessment. In this case:

Objectives were set to problem-solving,
The students were assessed with problem-solving.
But only lower levels of learning, such as concepts, were presented to students.

Because of this students who have not been exposed to problem-solving techniques related to the course will more than likely have low-achievement when working on problem-solving assignments or problem-solving questions on an exam.

Graph showing objectives and assessment set at problem-solving, but content set at a lower level

Congruent (Matched) Objectives and Assessment

In contrast, the graphic below (Adapted from Dwyer) shows one example of matching your objectives with instruction.

Set your objectives to teach problem-solving.
Design your instruction and learning activities to teach or demontratie problem-solving.
Assess the students at the problem-solving level.

Graph showing objectives, instruction and assessment set at the same level

This will make sure you are measuring what you are teaching.

References

Dwyer, F. M.(1991). A paradigm for generating curriculum design oriented research questions in distance education. Second American Symposium Research in Distance Education, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University.

Heinrich, R., Molenda, M., Russell, J.D., Smaldino, S.E. (1996). Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill.

Huitt, W. (2000). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain.
Retrieved May 14, 2003 from
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/bloom.html

Kizlik, B. (2003). How to write effective behavioral objectives. Boca Raton, FL: Adprima.
Retrieved May 14, 2003 from
http://www.adprima.com/objectives.htm

Lohr, L (no date).Objectives, sequencing, strategies,
Retrieved May 14, 2003 from http://www.coe.unco.edu/LindaLohr/home/et502_cbt/Unit3/Unit3_menu.htm

SOGC Org (No date). Writing instructional objectives: The what, why how and when.
Retrieved May 14, 2003, from http://www.sogc.org/conferences/pdfs/instructionalObj.PDF