Performance Improvement • Volume 45 • Number 3 9
T
hrow out your learning objec-
tives. Go ahead. Throw them
away! They are only getting in
the way of your real goal:
improving performance. You don’t need
them—truly you don’t.
A gaping hole in our practice appears
when we throw out the learning objec-
tives. We no longer know what to teach.
We stand on a precipice without our
well-worn safety net.
Having been a strong proponent of learn-
ing objectives for the past 25-plus years, I
considered them one of the more power-
ful Human Performance Technology tools
available. Throw them away? Heavens,
no! They are an essential underpinning
of our field … or are they?
Learning Objectives as Barriers
In the right hands, learning objectives are
great tools for clarifying thinking, break-
ing down learning into component parts,
creating a logical order to learning, and
demonstrating that a learning intervention
is successful. Mostly, however, they have
become clichés. With our industry’s ten-
dency to use them as pro forma media
bites, they tend to add little value to either
instructional design or the assessment of
learning. In this regard, they then become
barriers to our real purpose of facilitating
learners’ accomplishment of work.
After reviewing any given set of learning
catalog (corporate or academic), one
often wonders whether any integration
occurs between learning offerings. It
certainly is difficult to see a progression
from one learning offering to another
based on the learning objectives.
Progression aside, it is often difficult to
tell what one is supposed to be able to
do “back on the job” after attending
training. Learning objectives focus so
tightly on the learning environment that
there is barely a nodding recognition
that learning must then be applied to
work. (Even in academia there is an
application, though it may not be work …
or it may be.)
Even worse, the level of complexity
reflected in learning objectives fre-
quently does not increase from the
beginner to the most advanced classes.
That is, each of the three recognized
domain taxonomies (cognitive, affective,
and psychomotor) that drive how we
write learning objectives provides a hier-
archy for advancement within those
domains. When we look at typical learn-
ing objectives in course catalogs, courses
appear to have the same level of expecta-
tion, and most are in the cognitive
domain. One is often left wondering,
“What does the learner learn and then
practice at work? When does domain
integration occur?”
Throw Out Learning Objectives!
In Support of a New Taxonomy
by Sharon L. Gander, CPT, MEd

10 www.ispi.org • MARCH 2006
If we are honest with ourselves, we will also recognize that
learning objectives often mask inaccurate needs assess-
ments, muddied thinking, and insufficient transfer back
into the work of the day. The lack of assessment and analy-
sis is often glaringly obvious in the wording of learning
objectives. Examples are so easy to find that they exist in
every conference, workshop, or course description.
Learning objectives have tended to become so trivialized
and generalized that they communicate little more than the
topic to be covered. Few even attempt to describe success-
ful behavior or the measurement of it—and measurement is
(at least theoretically) an essential component of a learning
objective.
In general, learning objectives do not meet the need to which
they are applied. Very few effectively describe desired
changes in performance or behavior; most describe knowl-
edge elements (models, theories, terminology) or tools
introduced. Most avoid clear descriptions of what constitutes
mastery or even minimal competency in the topic or tool.
Because few practitioners have learned how to effectively
write behavioral objectives (criterion-referenced objectives),
few learning event objectives describe targeted learner per-
formance (behavior) after learning. Most learning objectives
are pro forma requirements that promote an event; they are
a marketing tool providing media sound bites to interested
courseware consumers.
Even the best learning objectives often mask how the learn-
ing applies to the work. Learning objectives focus on one
environment—the learning environment—to the exclusion
of other environments in which the learner must work. In
fact, to some extent intentionally, the pro forma production
of learning objectives transfers the responsibility for appli-
cation of learning from the creator to the consumer by
forcing the consumer to decide whether he or she believes
that the topics listed fit his or her need and then forcing the
participants to make the transfer on their own.
At times (as you may have discovered in the sidebar Learning
Objectives Challenge), learning objectives are not even
learner focused. Instructor-focused objectives describe the
instructor’s intended actions during the learning event rather
than the learner’s actions during or after completion of the
learning. These objectives are twice removed from real-world
work. Obviously, they are a major disconnect for the reader as
well as a misuse of the objectives as a tool, and they demon-
strate that the instructional designers or instructors are
unclear about the audience and its need. However, consumers
may read these learning objectives as lists of topics anyway.
During the learning experience, instructors often treat learn-
ing objectives as check-off items to be completed, a practice
that leads to the belief that filling the seat, reading the mate-
rial, or participating in discussions and activities equals an
ability to do the task on the job. Unfortunately, done once
seldom equals “can do it again.”
In addition, learning objectives often provide no sense that
basic skills integrate into more complex skills. Nor is there
any indication that minimal or even increasing speed, qual-
ity, or quantity may be important.
We seldom see objectives that describe the variety of condi-
tions to which the learner must respond: the elements that
modify decisions or the various triggers that start, stop,
Learning Objectives Challenge
Not sure you agree? Take this challenge. Decide for yourself whether the
learning objectives you see every day have anything at all to do with per-
formance. Check to see whether they reflect the true sophistication of the
work and communicate the expected degree of sophistication intended
after transferring learning to work.
1. Randomly select 12 learning events from one source (e.g., a course
catalog).
2. Rate each for difficulty based on all available course information. Rate
low difficulty and low previous experience as “1” and high difficulty
with significant previous experiences as “5.”
3. Then break the course learning objectives down into a verb-noun
(or noun phrase) form.
a. Use a spreadsheet to manage budget.
b. Manage the budget using a spreadsheet tool.
4. Score 0 for any learning objective that is an instructor objective
(e.g. “I will teach, show, demonstrate how …”).
5. Score the verbs about thinking as follows, using any available job aid
of words in Bloom’s Taxonomy (cognitive):
Knowledge verbs = 1 point
Comprehension verbs = 2 points
Application verbs = 3 points
Analysis verbs = 4 points
Synthesis verbs = 5 points
Evaluation verbs = 6 points
6. Score 2 points for any verb that indicates physical action or any verb
not listed in your Bloom’s taxonomy list.
7. Subtract 2 points for any learning objective that listed more than one
verb.
8. Total the points.
9. Divide the total by the number of objectives listed for the course to
generate learning difficulty rating based on objectives only.
10. Compare that learning level rating to your personal rating of difficulty
in step 2.
11. Synthesize your findings: Did the learning objective reflect the degree
of difficulty or the work that would be required?