Preparing Instructional Objectives

Preparing Instructional Objectives by Robert F. Mager was first published in 1962 as Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction by Pitman Learning. The publication describes the importance of being explicit when writing instructional objectives, the qualities of useful objectives, and the components of effective instructional objectives. Instructional objectives can be valuable tools for perceiving and guiding curriculum studies. They reveal instructional expectations to students; help the teacher select instructional methods, materials, and procedures; and help the teacher determine appropriate assessments.

Mager, an influential researcher and learning theorist who viewed learning experiences through a behaviorist or objectivist approach, developed the concept and value of behavioral instructional objectives. As a behaviorist, he saw learning as occurring only when student behavior was changed in concrete, observable ways. In Preparing Instructional Objectives, Mager describes his view of effective instruction through the measurement of specific outcomes. This book assisted many instructors in formulating and writing objectives. In this book, Mager explains that instructors can best help students learn when they know what the students' current instructional needs are and what the result or goal is for a particular lesson or learning experience. For example, if the goal is for a student to learn to write his or her name, knowing what the student already knows and the intended result will help the instructor determine what materials are needed, what method will be most effective, what steps to take to help the student reach the end goal, and how the instructor will know the student has reached the designed goal.

In Preparing Instructional Objectives, Mager defines instructional objectives as specific outcome-based statements of measurable student behaviors that result from instruction. They are specific and outcome based in that they explicitly state what the student is expected to do as a result of instruction. They provide means to measure student behaviors that can be heard or seen as evidence the student has successfully achieved the objective. Instructional objectives do not describe the process or instruction but rather the results of instruction.

This book made a significant contribution to curriculum studies. In the 1960s and 1970s, many public school teachers were required to create behavioral objectives as a critical part of their daily lessons. Workshops taught teachers Mager's model for writing behavioral objectives, which were seen as a way to increase learning and retention through specific and measurable curriculum design.

Critics of this book debated the value of objectives as related to planning and delivering curriculum and instruction. These critics objected to using behavioral objectives to shape instruction because they saw learning not as changes in behaviors that reflect conformity with measurable outcomes but as a process. Critics said that behavioral objectives disregarded diverse ways of knowing, behaving, and learning. They view learning as less structured and predictable than the perspective of learning represented in behavioral objectives. They see learning as more self-directed and child-centered than objective-directed and teacher-centered.

Preparing Instructional Objectives has had lasting importance in the field of curriculum studies. Educators are still writing and using behavioral objectives as part of their curriculum design when behavioral changes are the curriculum outcome. However, given more progressive views of learning, learning objectives are being stated less [Page 684]in behavioral and prescriptive terms and more in terms of learning as a process.

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