GAINING THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE:USING PARTICIPANT-ORIENTED

BEHAVIORALLEARNING OBJECTIVES IN INSTRUCTIONAL

DESIGN AND DELIVERY

A Presentation for theIASIA Annual Conference

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION

AND TRAINING

SPONSORED BY

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES OF

ADMINISTRATION

ABU DHABIUNITED ARAB EMIRATES

9-14 JULY 2007

WORKING GROUP I.EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMME

SUBMITTED BYBlue Wooldridge, BA, MGA, MPA, DPAFellow, National Academy of Public

AdministrationAnd

ProfessorThe L. Douglas Wilder

School of Government and Public AffairsVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Richmond, VA 23284-2028bwooldri@vcu.edu

Website: www.people.vcu.edu/~bwooldri

ABSTRACT

“Competing in the global economy requires educating,

training and developing workers to meet new challenges”

(Sims & Sims 2006, p. vii). However, just as global

competiveness presents opportunities to Schools and

Institutes of Administration (SIA), such competiveness also

present challenges. The mobility of managerial staff to

take courses in other countries or institutions, and the

ability of other institutes to offer instruction through

distance education modes, requires each SIA to take every

advantage of ways to improve and to highlight the quality

of their courses.

This presentation will provide evidence supporting the

importance of “participant-oriented behavioral

learning objectives” (POBLOs). in the improvement of

instructional design and delivery. This concept will be

defined, and placed in its sequence in the “Strategic-

Contingency Approach to Instruction Design”

(Wooldridge, 2004). The purpose that POBLOs can

serve will be delineated, and key words useful in

writing learning objectives will be presented. At the

end of this presentation members of the audience

should be able to write POBLOs for a specific

instructional task.

In my article in the International Review of Administrative Sciences

(Wooldridge, 2004). I describe the steps toStrategic-Contingency Approach to instructional

design.

These steps include: identifying the strategic mission of the

organization of the students identifying specific job performances necessary

to meet the organization’s strategic mission; determine the “performance gap” caused by a

lack of competencies; for those employees identified in the previous

step, identify learner’s instructional needs;

transform these needs into Participant/student oriented Behavior-SMART Learning-Objectives;

sequence Learning Objectives; select Appropriate learning strategies based on

level and types of objectives; identify relevant learning styles; modify learning strategies to respond to

learning styles or take corrective action to lessen deficiencies in

strategies; implement learning strategies in the most

effective manner; and evaluate results.

In this short piece, I jump into the middle of the instructional design approach by suggesting, and

providing some evidence, that writing (and including in the course syllabus) Participant Oriented-Behavioral

Learning Objectives (POBLOs) can improve the improve the effectiveness of Public Administration instruction.

Each of this complicated term has significance. “Participant-oriented emphasizes that the learning

objectives should be viewed from the perspective of what the participant/student will know, comprehend/be able to

apply at the end of our course (this concept is closely related to the “participant-focus” instruction advocated

by Wessels, 1999, and others). “Behavioral” refers to the fact that we ought to be able to observe by their actions, whether our “participants” have conquered the course

objectives.

Definition and justification of participant oriented behavioral learning goals and objectives

A goal is a general statement of what the teacher hopes to accomplish during a course (Hannah & Michaelis, 1977). ). These terms are normally considered to be broad or general statements of educational intent. They usually describe the overall purpose of a course. Some goals I have developed for my core MPA course in Public Policy Analysis and Implementation are:

Attempts will be made to successfully achieve severalgoals during this segment. These include having the

classparticipant develop the competencies to:

l. describe and explain the relationships and purpose s of the basic characteristics of the rational decision-making process, and its potential use and abuse in public policy formulation; and,

2. describe, explain the use of, and be able to apply appropriately specific techniques used in rational decision-making that assist in dealing with the identification of costs and benefits as well as the setting of objectives and the selection of alternatives.

After the training goals have been specified, participant-oriented behavioral learning objectives (POBLOs) can

be developed (Wooldridge, 1987a). Mager (1962) describes an objective as "an intent communicated by

a statement describing a proposed change in a learner‑-a statement of what the learner is to be like when he

has successfully completed a learning experience" (p. 3). Others has defined training objectives as, a

description of a performance you want learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent, or

what the trainee should be able to accomplish after successfully completing the training program,

(Goldstein, 1974). ). “Educational objectives are collections of …precise, …detailed statements relating to different aspects of the fulfillment of specific aims.

In the generally-accepted usage of the work, objectives have taken on the status of definitive descriptions of desirable educational outcomes,

often expressed in terms of what students should be able to do at the end of their course, (Ellington,

p. 2).

My own concept of participant orientated behavior learning objectives (POBLOs), emphasizes two very

important issues. One is that the learning objective must be stated in terms of what the

trainee can know, feel or apply at the end of the training module (analogize to the “outcomes” focus

of Wessels, 1999), and secondly, such new competencies must be observable through the

behavior of the trainee.

Around the time I did my analysis of PHRM syllabi,

Training Magazine reported that only 60% of the Human

Resource Development professionals who responded, wrote

learning objectives in behavioral terms (as reported in Rossett,

1986). Yet research in both organizational behavior and pedagogy

clearly screams for such clear articulation of what the learner is to

master.

For example, let us examine the Goal Setting cognitive Theory of motivation as suggested by Locke (1968); Locke & Latham, (1984); Latham & Locke (1991); and Tubbs (1986) . “Goal setting theory is based on the simplest of introspective observations, namely,

that conscious human behavior is purposeful,” (Latham & Locke, 1991, p. 212).

The existence of a goal (objective) creates a tension that motivates individuals to achieve that goal. It is possible to identify six relatively distinct task-goal attributes that facilitate task performance in a goal-setting environment:

1). goal specificity; 2). goal difficulty; 3). participation in goal-setting; 4). feedback on goal effort; 5). peer competition for goal attainment; and 6) goal acceptance. (Steers, 1981, p. 171). Another major, and related, attribute of task-goals is goal commitment. As of 1991, approximately 400 studies have examined the relationship of goal attributes to performance (Latham & Locke, 1991).

In examining the benefits of a systematic approach to instructional design, Serafin (1990) found that, “More explicit course syllabus in terms of number of objectives, content, instructional resources and grading components represent greater information and instruction that are better captured and processed in the learning situation experienced by the students.” (p. 11).

Ellington (no date) suggests benefits for participant oriented behavioral learning objectives. In describing the advantages of POBLOs he writes:Detailed, well-written objectives allow both teaching staff and students to have a clear picture of the behavior that is expected of the latter at the end of a course. This can help to provide direction and stability in the course.

Another advantage is that clear behavioral objectives can provide is in adjusting

teachingmethods to facilitate the achievement of the

stated objectives.

A further benefit which can arise from a clear statement of objectives is that a teacher who is in possession of such objectives should be in a much better position to decide how they may be

assessed, since he should know exactly what behaviors he is supposed to be

assessing.

Writing Participant-Oriented Behavioral Learning Objectives

Some management developers/trainers have suggest that learning objectives should be SMART:

SPECIFIC State exactly what the learner will be able to do or say MEASURABLE The instructor can observe learning progress

during the session ACTION VERB The verb should be action oriented (identify, list,

develop, explain, make, define, ask, provide, review, compare contrast, demonstrate, apply).

REALISTIC The objectives need to be doable by all participants TIME-BOUND The objective should be attainable by the end of

the session

According to Mager, an objective should be written in

clear, unambiguous terms that can be understood without

the need for explanation. The objective should always

contain the following three elements (Ellington): It should state what the student should be able to do

at the end of the learning experience (the terminal behavior).

It should state the conditions or constraints under which this terminal behavior is to be exhibited

It should give a clear indication of the minimum standard of performance that is considered acceptable.

Since the major purpose of a POBLO is to describe the expected terminal behavior, “a key part of each objective is the verb, which

should be chosen carefully so as do describe as unequivocally as possible exactly what the

student should be able to do on completing the particular learning activity,” (Ellington, p. 4)

Mager has two lists of verbs to contrast the types of words that could be used to describe

behaviors (as cited in Hardt):

Verbs open to manyinterpretationsKnowUnderstandAppreciateGrasp significance ofEnjoy BelieveHave faith in

Verbs open to fewer interpretations

Write Recite DifferentiateSolve Construct CompareContrastList

After the goals and behavioral objectives for each

administrative course have been clearly spelled out,

the instructor should compare the knowledge, skills and

Attitudes to be gained from the course with those

identified, during the needs assessment stage.

In light of this insight I have had to revise my own course

syllabi to replace verbs such as “know” and “understand”

with more descriptive words as “list,” “compare,”

“contrast,” and “differentiate.”

Groups learning objectives into useful categorizes and

Sequence the learning objectives

The final step in my Strategic-Contingency Approach to

Management Training which I will discuss in this chapter is

how to group the participant-oriented behavior learning

objectives, developed in the previous section into meaningful

categorizes, and provide suggestions as how to sequence the

resultant groups.

Several authors have suggested different categorizes in which to group learning objectives. . McCleary and McIntyre (1972) suggested groups identified at specific levels of learning--familiarity, understanding or application combined with the type of learning to take place ( technical, conceptual or human relational). Other authors have suggested such categorizes as: Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Retention, Acceptance, (Carroll, Payne and Ivancevich ,1972;. Newstrom, 1980; and Shoenfelt, Eastman and Mendel ,1991). Using common categorizes such as these are useful since these researchers have attempted to relate the effectiveness of various instructional strategies to each of these groups of learning objectives.

Paige and Martin (1983) have taken the sequencing of learning objective one step further.

Many participant-oriented behavior learning objectives confront the trainee with the possibility of revealing things about themselves to others that they would prefer left unknown and with the risk of failure. An issue facing the trainer is the degree to which he/she can properly sequence such learning objectives into the overall training experience. Paige and Martin presented in a sequencing order according to the behavioral requirements of the activity, the learning domain(s) of the activity and the degree of personal risk (both self-disclosure and possibility of failure) associated with the activity. They suggest that the early learning objectives should require instructional strategies that minimize trainee risk, and increase the risk level as the trainee begins to become more comfortable.

Effective sequencing of learning objectives and instructional strategies are also discussed in recent articles by Aristiqueta (1997) and Denhardt, Lewis, Raffel and Rich (1997). The insight provided by all three of these discussions should be thoughtfully reviewed by all public sector trainers.

References are included

in the full paper.