Higher Ed Musings 1.
In which I wonder about 'learning outcomes'
The concept of “learning outcomes” emerges out of behaviorism; this handbook, “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” (1956) seems to have started it all, ratified and expanded by the Bologna Process (1999). Soon no institution of higher learning could escape implementation.
What seems to be the case is that assessing teaching has become less important than assessing learning. The student is more important to the education transaction than the teacher. Twenty-first century higher education is all about assessing whether a student has learned. The job of both faculty and administration is to make sure students have learned. And yet a regular refrain among educators is that students know far less than they did decades ago. Even in the internet age, with more information easily available to more students, it is not generally said that students enter college with increased knowledge or that the majority of students graduate with more knowledge than decades past.
I am looking for studies of whether the entire “learning outcomization” of higher ed has accomplished better learning or whether it has been a colossal failure.
The best study I’ve found is this one, Martin G. Erikson and Malorzata Erikson’s “Learning Outcomes and Critical Thinking – Good Intentions in Conflict” (2019):
ABSTRACT
The notion of critical thinking and its theoretical complexity are used as a case for an epistemological critique of the model of intended learning outcomes. The conclusion is that three problems of learning outcomes, previously discussed in the literature, become even more challenging when seen in the light of critical thinking. The first problem concerns interpretations, as the use of learning outcomes is dependent on advanced but implicit interpretative frameworks. The second is the problem of educational goals that cannot be expressed through learning outcomes, and the third is the risk that learning outcomes may establish a ceiling for student ambitions. It is argued that the example of critical thinking shows the seriousness of the epistemological critique of learning outcomes and how the use of learning outcomes can divert teachers’ and students’ attention away from important goals.
The authors look at the history of the “learning outcomes” juggernaut and agree that “Central to the idea of intended learning outcomes is that education should be planned based on the competence students are intended to develop, and not on the content the teachers happen to have the intention to teach. Thus, the learning outcome model helps us shift the focus from the teacher to the results of students’ learning processes.” They conclude, “It should hardly be controversial to believe that if institutions of higher education are to meet society’s expectation by helping students mature into critical thinkers through their transition at university, it is academic goals that should be given precedence.”