The Four Sources of Objectives
The Four Sources of Objectives
The four sources of information
- Studies of the learners themselves.
- Contemporary life outside the school.
- Suggestions from subject specialists.
- The use of philosophy.
Studying the learner
- The purpose of education is a change in learners’ behaviour patterns.
- Behaviour, broadly, includes thinking and feeling.
- Objectives should reflect the kind of changes expected in learners.
Since no single source is enough, a developer needs a full set to draw on. Tyler names four sources of information for identifying educational objectives. They organize the rest of this module: each of the next chapters takes one source and works it out.
The four sources
The four sources of information to identify educational objectives are:
- Studies of the learners themselves. What the learners need, are interested in, and are ready for.
- Contemporary life outside the school. What the society and the world demand of people now.
- Suggestions from subject specialists. What the people who know a field deeply think it can offer.
- The use of philosophy. The values that decide which of the many possible objectives are worth keeping.
The first three generate candidate objectives. The fourth, philosophy, along with the psychology of learning, acts as a screen that filters them. A developer gathers possibilities from learners, life, and specialists, then uses philosophy and psychology to decide which to keep.
| Source | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Studies of learners | What do the learners need? |
| Contemporary life | What does society demand now? |
| Subject specialists | What can the field offer? |
| Philosophy | Which objectives are worth keeping? |
Studies of learners, contemporary life, subject specialists, and philosophy
The first three supply candidate objectives; philosophy, with the psychology of learning, screens them. A developer gathers from all and then filters.
Studying the learner means studying behaviour change
The first source, the study of learners, rests on a particular idea of what education is for. The purpose of education is a change in the behaviour patterns of learners. Behaviour here is meant broadly and explicitly: it includes thinking and feeling, not just outward action.
If education is defined as changing behaviour in this broad sense, then objectives should be stated so they reflect the kind of changes expected in learners. And a study of the learners helps identify exactly which changes in their behaviour patterns the objectives should seek to develop. You study learners to find out what needs to change.
A short example shows how this works, and where it can go wrong. Suppose a study of an elementary school turns up a fact: dietary deficiency among the learners and inadequate physical condition. From this, a developer might propose objectives in health education and social studies. But there is a catch. Those objectives only follow if the dietary deficiency is viewed against some desirable or normal physical condition and treated as a problem worth addressing. If the deficiency is simply taken for granted as normal, there is little chance of drawing any educational objective from the data at all. A fact becomes an objective only when measured against a standard of what should be.
A fact suggests an objective only when compared with a desirable standard
Data like “learners have poor diets” points to an objective only if held against what a healthy condition should be. The gap between what is and what should be is the idea of need.
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