Sometimes I am in a hurry to tell a friend a story, and bits get left out. I have it in my head so think I have communicated the whole story. When the story doesn’t result in the desired effect, I retell it with the missing pieces.
Writing performance objectives can feel like a struggle to get the full story out so the listener can enjoy it as much as the storyteller.
When telling a friend a story, I don’t often think deeply about the objective.
I might be trying to make her laugh, empathize, or get inspired. I can tell if I achieved my objective by what she does.
If she laughs, I deduce my story was funny. If she doesn’t, I could tell her a more humorous story or quit trying. But unless she does something besides just listen, I can’t tell if my story has the desired effect.
Similarly, performance objectives should have the desired effect of making the learner do something besides just learning.
I reflected a lot on performance objectives in relation to designing scenario-based e-Learning (SBeL) this last week. I learned that some experts recommend omitting learning objectives in SBeL. I wouldn’t go that far, but I see how performance objectives can get lost in the myriad of actionable activities that make up SBeL.
Performance Objectives in SBeL.
Performance objectives emphasize what the learner will be able to do after learning. Without them, it is impossible to evaluate learning. One way to think about performance objectives is to think of them in connection to visible actions that can be measured.
Take, for instance, a salesman who takes a course in car sales. The performance objective could be: given a customer, the salesman will sell a car within six billable hours or reject the deal with supporting rationale.
There’s the visible action – close a sale. The performance measure is – within six hours with the customer. It might not happen in one meeting but the expected outcome is that sales reps sell a car or reject the offer within six hours with a customer.
SBeL makes writing performance great performance objectives a tad bit easier it uses realistic situations to create learning experiences.
Thinking of performance objectives in terms of scenarios helps me describe the expected performance on the job.
The first part of the performance objective: given a customer, the salesman…, depicts a realistic situation where the learner is expected to perform. The salesman must be able to sell a car when faced with a customer.
Focusing on the conditions under which a learner is expected to perform is critical to arriving at the right performance objective.
Writing effective performance objectives takes a lot of practice. Even after writing them, they may go through several iterations before they embody the essence of the reason training. Author Ruth Clark places the learning object in the middle of the design, and every other aspect of the design revolves around the learning objective. I’ve included arrows for performance objectives at the beginning and end of the model because I like to think about performance objectives at the beginning and end of the design process. I also want to see how the objective evolved over the iterative process of design e-learning objects.
Performance Objectives and Outcomes
In my example with the car salesman, an instructional designer (ID) can deduce the training was effective if salesmen sell a car within six hours.
Let’s say another car company invites the ID to design a course for salespersons who have a car return rate of 75%. Then the ID presents her effective sales course to the salesmen. The salesmen sell the cars under six hours, with a 75% return rate.
Now, remember, this is the course with the previous performance objective – given a customer, the salesperson, will sell a car within six billable hours or reject the customer’s offer with supporting rationale. This new company never had a problem selling cars. Their problem is the return rate. But they have been offered a course that gets cars sold without affecting the return rate.
In this case, the ID will need to create performance objectives that result in designing actions and decisions that reduce return rates.
A suitable learning objective, in this case, could be: given a variety of customers, a salesperson will interpret each customer’s needs and match the needs with car model specifications before making a sale with a 0% car return rate.
This more specific performance objective is likely to influence every aspect of the design and result in the desired outcome.
When I think of outcomes for courses, I picture the work situations and challenges, where the learner must be effective. This helps me think in terms of visible actions, and measurable results. Together these findings impact the creation of the performance objectives which are key to influencing training outcomes.
If you are interested in learning how to influence outcomes with training evaluations, follow this link to read the post.
https://tiptoplearner.com/how-to-influence-outcomes-with-training-evaluations/