The learning by objectives movement has other roots:
Learning by Objectives, Clarity and the Cult of Measurement
Preoccupation with “action verbs” is indicative of a commitment to what can usefully be called “behavioural education.” It is rooted in an insidious combination of Frederick Taylor's theory of scientific management in industry and B. F. Skinner's psychological theory of operant conditioning. As my colleague Ralph Barrett and I wrote some time ago (1977, August, 7):
… underpaid workers, starving rats and students are expected to become … conspicuous consumers of observable rewards. Such mindless competition is reproduced throughout our society; its educational variant simply involves students pressing appropriate behaviour levers (learning modules) in order to achieve the academic food pellet (the diploma). It is no accident that a society obsessed with “efficiency, “ with “getting results, “ with “learning and earning“ would emphasize externally observable and specifically measurable behaviours; in our system, behavioural education seems to work, but so [did] electric shock!
The kind of homogenized curriculum that is the stuff and substance of pre-packaged learning modules and that can be measured by quantitative assessments of student performance on evaluations of what students do destroys authentic educational opportunity by undermining curiosity, imagination, reflection and criticism. This is so obvious that it is barely worth breath or a line of type.
The Learning Outcomes Assessment (LOA) movement seems rather innocuous. Teachers and administrators at colleges and universities are asked to articulate the goals, objectives, measures, and outcomes of the educational process at every level: from the classroom to the department to the institution as a whole.
In the United States, the roots of the LOA movement, as opposed to engaged learning practices, can be traced back to Taylorism and theories of scientific management. LOA is really another manifestation of the standards movement, which emerged alongside the efficiency movement at the turn of the 20thcentury. By the first decade of the last century, business models, rhetoric, and ideology had so saturated the field of K-12 education that educators themselves began proposing that schools should run as efficiently as factories. A social efficiency movement in education took firm hold, with influential proponents such as William C. Bagley; Bagley wrote the textbook Classroom Management in 1907 so that teachers, educators, and professionals in the field might better apply the principles of scientific management to their workspaces. His book was followed by Franklin Bobbit’s The Curriculum, in 1918. Drawing his influence from business and economic sectors, Bobbit—the inventor of Curriculum Theory—argued that schools, like businesses, should be efficient, eliminate waste, and focus on outcomes to the degree that the curriculum must be useful in shaping students into adult workers. Along with Frederick Winslow Taylor, Bobbit believed that efficient outcomes depended on centralized authority and precise, top down instruction for all tasks performed. Teachers were expected to acquiesce in the outside knowledge of efficiency experts—administrators and professors of education. Thus, curriculum was conceived of as a normalizing device and instrument of social regulation, one that would help control the working class so that the United States could better compete with German production.
The behaviourist orientation to learning. The behaviourist movement in psychology has looked to the use of experimental procedures to study behaviour in relation to the environment.
John B. Watson, who is generally credited as the first behaviourist, argued that the inner experiences that were the focus of psychology could not be properly studied as they were not observable. Instead he turned to laboratory experimentation. The result was the generation of the stimulus-response model. In this the environment is seen as providing stimuli to which individuals develop responses.
In essence three key assumptions underpin this view:
Observable behaviour rather than internal thought processes are the focus of study. In particular, learning is manifested by a change in behaviour.
The environment shapes one’s behaviour; what one learns is determined by the elements in the environment, not by the individual learner.
The principles of contiguity (how close in time two events must be for a bond to be formed) and reinforcement (any means of increasing the likelihood that an event will be repeated) are central to explaining the learning process. (Merriam and Caffarella 1991: 126)
Researchers like Edward L. Thorndike build upon these foundations and, in particular, developed a S-R (stimulus-response) theory of learning. He noted that that responses (or behaviours) were strengthened or weakened by the consequences of behaviour. This notion was refined by Skinner and is perhaps better known as operant conditioning – reinforcing what you want people to do again; ignoring or punish what you want people to stop doing.
In terms of learning, according to James Hartley (1998) four key principles come to the fore:
Activity is important. Learning is better when the learner is active rather than passive. (‘Learning by doing’ is to be applauded).
Repetition, generalization and discrimination are important notions. Frequent practice – and practice in varied contexts – is necessary for learning to take place. Skills are not acquired without frequent practice.
Reinforcement is the cardinal motivator. Positive reinforcers like rewards and successes are preferable to negative events like punishments and failures.
Learning is helped when objectives are clear. Those who look to behaviourism in teaching will generally frame their activities by behavioural objectives e.g. ‘By the end of this session participants will be able to…’. With this comes a concern with competencies and product approaches to curriculum.
Behaviourism has given us learning outcomes/objectives:
A learning outcome is a description of what a learner will have learnt at the end of a period of
study. Learning outcomes in theory can encapsulate a wide range of knowledge types skills
and behaviours. We can thus have learning outcomes that describe: particular skills, such as
operating a microscope, ways of thinking, such as analyzing, ways of behaving, such as
respecting clients and the possession (de novo) of good old fashioned declarative
knowledge.
A Critique of Instructional
Objectives James McKernan* Education Inquiry Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2010, pp.57–67 Abstract The ‘objectives model’ of curriculum planning, predicated upon behavioural performances, has
become the dominant form of curriculum planning in Europe and elsewhere in the world. This
paper argues that the objectives model is satisfactory for training or instruction, but falls down
when applied to a true sense of ‘education’. The paper outlines 13 limitations on the use of educational
objectives. It is argued that those interested in using objectives are guided by evaluation as
assessment rather than principles of procedure for education. Education is about the process of
‘travelling’ on an educational journey – not about ‘arriving’ at a destination. The idea of planning a curriculum with objectives has been prominent since the
time of Franklin Bobbitt (Bobbitt, 1918; 1924) in American education. Indeed, Educational
Psychology defines learning as demonstrable changes in human behaviour,
and a whole host of writers have championed the use of behavioural/instructional
objectives as performance targets as evidence for learning (Gronlund, 1970; Mager,
1962; Popham, 1968; Popham and Baker, 1970). Benjamin Bloom suggested objectives
to be “explicit formulations of ways in which students are expected to be changed
by the educative process”(Bloom, 1956). Mager, a leading advocate of behavioural
objectives, argued: “an objective is a description of a performance you want learners
to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent. An objective describes an
intended result of instruction, rather than the process of instruction itself” (Mager,
1962). The Mager model recommended that objectives should be specific and measurable.
Mager specified the three parts of an objective as follows: (1) it should have
a measurable verb (an action verb); (2) it should include a specification of what the
learner is given; and (3) it should contain a specification of criteria for success or
competency. The position adopted here is that instructional/behavioural objectives may be useful
when working with the concepts of training or instruction but are unacceptable
when dealing with the concept of education. 3. Objectives reduce education to an instrumental-utilitarian
activity: taking a means to an end Since the time of Frankin Bobbitt (1918; 1924) the idea of planning by objectives
has been popular reaching a sort of zenith in the work of Ralph Tyler (1949) with his behavioural ‘objectives model’ that is seen as a teacher taking a means to a
specified end. The idea behind this model is seen as changing the behaviour of the
student – therefore any statement of purpose (objectives) is seen as changes taking
place in the behaviour of students (Tyler, 1949:44). The most useful way of doing
this is to select learning experiences and guiding teaching to achieve the objectives.
This notion of Behaviourism as a guiding theoretical model has been the dominant
force in curriculum-making, despite recent attacks discrediting Behaviorism as a
sufficient theory of behaviour and of a model for curriculum (Sockett, 1973). Conclusions The objectives model seeks to provide the clarity of ends and is seemingly suitable for
both training and instruction where skills and performances are paramount. However,
the objectives model’s great problem lies in the area of induction into knowledge.
From a moral point of view, the objectives model is arrogant and undemocratic in
attempting to specify the behaviour of students in advance of instruction. Professor
Herbert Kliebard (Kliebard, 1968:246) suggested that pre-specifying objectives
amounts to indoctrination in the sense that it purports to stipulate how a person is
to behave and then by attempting to control the environments so as to manipulate
students into behaving as the teacher wishes them to.
The CEFR was developed to provide a common basis for the explicit description of objectives, content and methods in second/foreign language education.
The CEFR
adopts an action-oriented approach, describing language learning outcomes in terms of language use;
has three principal dimensions: language activities, the domains in which they occur, and the competences on which we draw when we engage in them;
divides language activities into four kinds: reception (listening and reading), production (spoken and written), interaction (spoken and written), and mediation (translating and interpreting);
provides a taxonomic description of four domains of language use – public, personal, educational, professional – for each of which it specifies locations, institutions, persons, objects, events, operations, and texts.
For reception, production, interaction, and some competences the CEFR defines six common reference levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), using “can do” descriptors to define the learner/user’s proficiency at each level.
During the years since the CEFR was developed and published, criticism has arisen
concerning the aims of the framework, its accessibility, description and classification
of language competences, the number of competence levels, and application of the
CEFR in language tests. Almost every aspect of the CEFR is vulnerable to serious
criticism and yet, bearing in mind the extent of its reach, those language professionals
who have criticised it in writing are relatively few in number.
We have already considered the work of Stephen Krashen:
Second language learning
Krashen believes that
there is no fundamental difference between the way we acquire our first
language and our subsequent languages. He claims that humans have aninnate
ability that guides the language learning process. Infants learn their
mother tongue simply by listening attentively to spoken language that is (made)
meaningful to them. Foreign languages are acquired in the same way.
More on innate language learning
The
claim that humans possess an innate language learning ability stems from
Chomsky (1965), who rejected Skinner's (1957) behaviourist theory that language
learning is habit formation through stimulus and response. Chomsky called the
special inborn language capability the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). From
this he developed the theory that all languages share an underlying system
named Universal Grammar. The hypothesis that the ability to learn language is
innate has been restated more recently by linguist Steven Pinker who claims
that this ability is "hard-wired in the genes".
Chomsky
and Pinker are nativists. Their theories are opposed by contemporary
empiricists such as Sampson (2005), who reiterate Skinner's claim that language
develops in response to environmental influences. Other linguists and cognitive
scientists, such as O'Grady (2005), agree that humans possess significant
innate capabilities. However, they suggest that language learning depends on
general cognitive faculties rather than on a specific language acquisition
mechanism.
The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
There are two ways of
developing language ability: by acquisition and by learning. Acquisition is a
sub-conscious process, as in the case of a child learning its own language or
an adult 'picking up' a second language simply by living and working in a
foreign country. Learning is the conscious process of developing a foreign
language through language lessons and a focus on the grammatical features of
that language.
More on the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
According
to Krashen learned language cannot be turned into acquisition. It is pointless
spending a lot of time learning grammar rules, since this will not help us
become better users of the language in authentic situations. At most, the
knowledge we gain about the language will help us in direct tests of that
knowledge or in situations when we have time to self-correct, as in the editing
of a piece of writing.
The Input Hypothesis
We acquire language
in one way only: when we are exposed to input (written or spoken language) that
is comprehensible to us. Comprehensible input is the necessary but also
sufficient condition for language acquisition to take place. It requires no
effort on the part of the learner.
Image copyrightThinkstockImage captionTeachers often complain about their workload
More than half of teachers in England (53%) are thinking of quitting in the next two years, a survey has suggested.
The survey, conducted by the National Union of Teachers, found 61% of those wanting to leave blamed workload and 57% desired a better work/life balance.
Two thirds of the 1,020 primary and secondary school teachers questioned felt morale in the profession had declined over the past five years.
Schools minister Nick Gibb pledged to tackle excessive workloads.
The findings of the survey are timely, because last month the five main teaching unions warned of a crisis in recruitment and retention, although the government maintains the vacancy rate has stayed stable at about 1%.
The survey, undertaken with a representative sample of teachers, also suggested many were unhappy with some of the government's plans.
76% said forcing schools that require improvement to become academies would damage education
62% said the plans for 500 new free schools would also damage education
54% were not confident the new baseline test for four-year-olds would provide valid information about a child's ability
General secretary of the NUT, Christine Blower, said: "This survey demonstrates the combined, negative impact of the accountability agenda on teacher workload and morale.
"Teachers feel that the Department for Education's work thus far to tackle workload has been totally inadequate.
"Meanwhile, nearly one million more pupils are coming into the system over the next decade. The government's solution so far has been to build free schools, often where there are surplus places, and to allow class sizes to grow.
"Add to this a situation where teachers are leaving in droves and teacher recruitment remains low. We now have a perfect storm of crisis upon crisis in the schools system."
She added that many teachers felt their pay had been eroded over a long period of time, and that many were missing out on the 1% pay rise because of the tightness of school budgets.
Mr Gibb said teaching remained "a hugely popular profession with the highest numbers of people joining since 2008.
"The latest figures show the number of former teachers coming back to the classroom has continued to rise year after year - from 14,720 in 2011 to 17,350 in 2014.
"While the vast majority of teachers stay in their roles for more than five years, we know unnecessary workload can detract from what matters most - teaching.
"That's why we launched the Workload Challenge and are working with the profession to understand and tackle the top issues that teachers said caused the most bureaucracy, with leading education experts taking action on key areas such as marking and lesson planning."
