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Objectives (Definition and Types)
The intended result of an educational program. Objectives are used to guide evaluation processes. They refer to the goals of a successful educational program or intervention. They are statements that describe what a student should know or be able to do on successful completion of a program. There is debate over whether objectives should be written at a specific or a general level; the latter position is taken in this definition.
Educational objectives can consist of different types and measure different general skills and abilities. In the late 1960s, evaluators were encouraged to write objectives using behavioral terms that would be easily measurable. These objectives focused primarily on the skills and abilities that could be directly observed. One of the primary disadvantages of behavioral objectives is ...