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Outcome-Based Education | |
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| Outcome-Based Education: Teaching and testing at the minimum, essential level is directed toward instruction that modifies student behavior to conform to a predetermined minimal level of performance. Performance outcomes are specific and call for simple responses. As previously stated, simple tasks make it easy to have a direct relationship between the objective, the instructional process, and the testing procedure. See Figure 5. for a diagram of evaluating an essential performance objective.
This model is very useful for teaching and testing simple skills where the intention is to have all students perform the tasks alike at a specified acceptable minimum level. Standards of minimal performance are easy to identify because complete mastery or near complete mastery is expected. For example, a student might be expected to correctly identify heart sounds with 90 percent accuracy. Teaching and testing at the higher developmental level encourages all students to make as much progress as possible toward a predetermined goal. The instructional objectives are often more general than those identifying a simple mastery of basic skills. Therefore, each general objective represents a category of responses. Objectives provide guidance for the students and the instructor without dictating specific types of instructional strategies or learning activities. Since these general objectives represent a whole class of responses, these objectives require the instructor to identify a sample of specific learning outcomes as described in the previous section. Teaching at the developmental level should be directed toward the general instructional goal and the total category of responses that it represents. The list of specific learning objectives provides a roadmap for test construction and evidence that general progress has been made. See Figure 6. for another example of this map from objective to outcome.
When measuring developmental learning, it is often difficult to define maximum individual achievement; therefore it is typical to describe performance in relative terms. This may be where an individual's performance falls within a particular group of students. In all cases, the test score indicates a relative level of achievement. The final list of objectives for a unit of study identifies learner performance outcomes that result from the instruction. Some of the outcomes will be indicative of a minimal essential level of performance for all students, and some will describe goals toward which various degrees of progress can be expected. These objectives provide a roadmap for instructional planning. Some faculty choose to construct an instructional chart that includes the objectives, the teaching strategies that will be used to communicate the instructional content, and the assessment or test strategy that will provide evidence of learner outcomes (see Figure 7.). The chart provides an overall plan to assure that each objective will receive the relative amount of attention it deserves in the lesson plans. Such a diagram helps direct individual lesson planning as well as appropriate weight to testing of material. The learning experience of the students becomes an integrated whole and the learning objectives become elements of a contract for partnership in that learning.
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*Note that specific performance outcomes identified at the beginning
of the process can be used as a basis for developing test items. In measuring
complex learning outcomes, however the test items should be different
than what was taught in the classroom. For example, application of principles
should be to new situations and interpretation of data should be based
on new information. When test items contain novel information, students
are required to do more than simple recall and instructors can measure
complex learning outcomes.
