Writing Meaningful Learning Outcomes

One of the most important steps in the assessment process is determining meaningful course learning outcomes (CLOs).  Without appropriate CLOs, it is difficult, if not impossible, to collect relevant or equitable information about student learning that can be used for instructional and program improvement.

CLOs typically concern three broad types of student learning:

1. Content knowledge or understanding (cognitive – what will students know?)
2. Abilities, skills, or competencies (behavioral – what will students be able to do?)
3. Values, dispositions, or attitudes (affective – how will students model discipline-specific professionalism?)

CLOs should be

• Consistent with the program goals and learning outcomes
• Comprehensive (i.e., collectively cover the main program goals)
• Focused on student learning (not teaching or some other aspect of the program)
• Clearly stated
• Realistic (can potentially be achieved by a significant portion of students)
• Measurable
• Actionable (can be used to produce data to assess program effectiveness)

When writing CLOs, it is easy to fall into the Goldilocks trap;  we want to steer away from outcomes that are too broad to be measurable or too narrow to fit coherently into the program goals.  Creating great CLOs can be challenging, but it gets easier with practice, and never be afraid to ask for examples from past iterations of the course.

Digging a bit deeper

When we talk about Outcomes being measurable and actionable, what does that actually mean?  When we design outcomes, we need to be purposeful in the action verbs that we use, to ensure that what we are requiring is an accurate representation of necessary skills–and also appropriate to the academic level that our learners are at right now.   

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy

You can use Bloom’s taxonomy to start thinking about the appropriate complexity-level of your outcomes.  If you would like to read more about the application of Bloom’s taxonomy on learning outcomes, Tophat has a great, highly accessible article.  If you would prefer to go straight to a list of action verbs for each level, click on the Bloom’s pyramid image below.

Writing meaningful learning outcomes walk-through

This short video, though walking through their student learning outcomes (using in the same capacity to our course learning outcomes) gives a really great overview of the outcome drafting/revising process–follow along with this useful tool:

Developing Great Outcomes is a 3-Step Process:

Useful terminology