Educational Psychology

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that live in water but do not breathe air. identify species that live in water but breathe air, as well

as species that live in water but do not breathe air.

The objective on the left names a special condition of performance—that the student will be given a particular

kind of list to work from—which is not part of the instruction itself. The objective on the right appears to name a

condition—“three days of instruction”. But the condition really describes what the teacher will do (she will

instruct), not something specific to students’ performance.

The third feature of a good behavioral objective is that it specifies a minimum level or degree of acceptable

performance. Consider these two examples:

Specifies minimum level

Given a list of 50 species, the student will circle all of

those that live in water but breathe air and underline all

of those that live in water but do not breathe air. The

student will do so within fifteen minutes.

Does not specify minimum level

The student will circle names of species that live in

water but breathe air and underline those that live in

water but do not breathe air.

The objective on the left specifies a level of performance—100 per cent accuracy within 15 minutes. The objective
on the right leaves this information out (and incidentally it also omits the condition of performance mentioned on
the left).

Behavioral objectives have obvious advantages because of their clarity and precision. They seem especially well
suited for learning that by their nature they can be spelled out explicitly and fully, such as when a student is
learning to drive a car, to use safety equipment in a science laboratory, or install and run a particular computer
program. Most of these goals, as it happens, also tend to have relatively short learning cycles, meaning that they can
be learned as a result of just one lesson or activity, or of just a short series of them at most. Such goals tend not to
include the larger, more abstract goals of education. In practice, both kinds of goals— the general and the specific—
form a large part of education at all grade levels.

Finding the best in both approaches

When it comes to teaching and learning the large or major goals, then, behavioral objectives can seem unwieldy.
How, a teacher might ask, can you spell out all of the behaviors involved in a general goal like becoming a good
citizen? How could you name in advance the numerous conditions under which good citizenship might be
displayed, or the minimum acceptable level of good citizenship expected in each condition? Specifying these
features seems impractical at best, and at times even undesirable ethically or philosophically. (Would we really
want any students to become “minimum citizens”?) Because of these considerations, many teachers find it sensible
to compromise between the cognitive and behavioral approaches. Here are some features that are often part of a
compromise:

• When planning, think about BOTH long-term, general goals AND short-term, immediate objectives. A
  thorough, balanced look at most school curricula shows that they are concerned with the general as well as
  the specific. In teaching elementary math, for example, you may want students to learn general problem
  solving strategies (a general goal), but you may also want them to learn specific math facts (a specific
  objective). In teaching Shakespeare’s plays in high school, you may want students to be able to compare the

Educational Psychology 218 A Global Text