Medical teachers’ perspectives on development and use of objectives

Abstract

Experienced medical teachers were interviewed regarding creation and use of objectives for instruction. This paper summarizes reported advantages and disadvantages of objectives, describes reported changes in strategy with experience, and provides advice on the creation and use of objectives. Medical teachers agree that the process of writing objectives leads to clarification of intuitively held teaching goals and thus leads to better teaching and testing decisions. To achieve this benefit, an instructor must invest considerable time, effort and creativity in the process. The path of least resistance in writing objectives often leads to goals which serve no useful function and may be harmful to the teaching-learning process.

Approche par objectifs ou approche par compétences ? Repères conceptuels et implications pour les activités d’enseignement, d’apprentissage et d’évaluation au cours de la formation clinique

“…L'influence conjointe de l'approche par objectifs et de la perspective docimologique a pour sa part apporté une incontestable rigueur à la démarche évaluative. Depuis une cinquantaine d'années, les examens sommatifs à enjeux importants 22 , tels que les examens de certification, ont ainsi bénéficié de développe-ments successifs leur conférant, moyennant un effort important de standardisation, un niveau de fidélité et de validité élevé [23][24][25] 29,30 , avec une prépondé-rance de facto de l'évaluation de la maîtrise des faits, des règles, des lois et des principes. Les mêmes raisons et, à nouveau, bien que cela ne soit pas strictement inhérent à l'approche par objectifs en tant que telle, ont conduit à privilégier l'évaluation des produits plutôt que des processus.…”

Clinical Teaching Modes

“…B y what mode should a subject be taught? Selecting the mode of clinical instruction requires knowledge of learning goals and objectives (Williams & Osborne, 1982) as well as indications for each mode. Further, careful design of the teaching exercise is critical to the engagement of students.…”

How to devise educational objectives

“…Among the advantages of the learning by objectives approach is that it helps to design more relevant and efficient educational programmes. This is so because: it provides directions for curriculum development; it assists in the selection and design of teaching/learning activities; it facilitates the evaluation of curricular outcomes by providing a basis for evaluating students and learning experiences through standards of performance established in advance and regularly revised; it increases the validity potential of evaluation instruments; it permits the pre‐assessment of students; it facilitates the measurement of students’ needs; it facilitates their revision in the light of experience because of its explicitness; it forces teachers to think carefully about what is important; ‘the process of thinking involved in creating the objectives appears to be more important to instruction and learning than to the product (written objectives)’ (Williams et al . 1982); it helps avoid unnecessary repetitions in teaching; it promotes better integration by confronting learners with an overview of their future professional profile; it pinpoints inconsistencies and allows them to be eliminated by a process of adjustment; it facilitates the functioning of a self‐checking system; it serves a diagnostic function if an adequate network of performance‐assessment instruments has been based on the objectives; it helps bridge the gap between vague, but relevant, and important, institutional goals and actual instruction.…”