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Most clients have a specific outcome in mind for learners when they initiate an e-learning project. So how do you make sure learners reach the desired learning destination? By creating clear objectives, or milestones, that move learners toward the goal in a specific, measurable way. 

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In this article we’ll look at why learning objectives are important, what makes them “good” (or “bad”), and how to craft solid e-learning objectives for your courses. Here we go!

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Why Learning Objectives Are Important

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Learning objectives are the cornerstone of every e-learning course. They’re the reason you’re creating the course. They guide you as you select the content and activities to include. And they help you determine whether your course has been effective.

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So basically, without learning objectives you won’t know why you’re creating the course, what content to include, what activities to choose, or how to gauge the success of your course. Seems pretty important when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

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What Makes Learning Objectives “Good”

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Despite their importance, all too often learning objectives are vague and unclear. Say you’re creating a course for mortgage company employees on how to process FHA loans. The goal may seem clear on the surface: you want learners to understand how to process FHA loans. But how will you know if your learners have reached that goal? You won’t—because understanding isn’t something you can measure. 

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“Good” learning objectives are SMART objectives. They’re:

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• Specific
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• Measurable
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• Achievable
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• Relevant 
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• Time-related
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Let’s take a closer look at how to use this simple formula to write your learning objectives. 

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Writing SMART Learning Objectives

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How do you write SMART learning objectives? Start by taking a step back. Think about the smaller tasks that learners need to accomplish to achieve the larger goal. 

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Then choose a specific, measurable action verb that accurately describes what learners need to accomplish. For example, do they need to be able to recall a product name? Explain a concept? Evaluate the risks and benefits of different choices? Avoid using verbs like understand or know; they’re difficult (read: impossible) to measure. Check out Bloom’s Taxonomy for a list of verbs that work well for learning objectives.

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Instead of: 

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At the end of the course, learners will know how to process an FHA loan

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Try:

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At the end of the course, learners will be able to:

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• identify the documents required
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\n

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• identify the credit requirements
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\n

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• identify the employment requirements
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Let’s check those objectives against our SMART criteria to make sure we’ve covered everything:

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• Are they specific? Yes. They outline three specific requirements the learners need to be able to identify. 
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• Are they measurable? Yes. You could present learners with a multiple response question for each to determine whether or not they can correctly identify the requirements.
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• Are they achievable? Yes. If the course explains to the learners how to identify these requirements, they should be able to do it.
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• Are they relevant? Yes. Assuming the course content is focused on how to identify these requirements.
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• Are they time-bound? Yes. When will the learner know how to identify these requirements? At the end of the course.
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Now those are some SMART objectives! You’ll be able to use them as a guide to build a helpful course and measure its effectiveness.

\n

The Bottom Line

\n

Without solid learning objectives, you’ll be hard-pressed to build an effective e-learning course. After all, how can you choose relevant content and activities if you don’t know what learners need to be able to do after taking the course? And if you can’t measure whether they’ve reached those objectives, you won’t know whether your course was successful in helping them do that. 

\n

So next time you start a new e-learning project, be sure to think carefully about your learning objectives and ensure they’re SMART before you start building out your course. 

\n

Looking for more instructional design tips? Check out these helpful articles:

\n

\n
• An Introduction to Instructional Design
\n
• An Introduction to the ADDIE Model for Instructional Designers
\n
• An Introduction to SAM for Instructional Designers
\n
• An Introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy for Instructional Designers
\n

\n

Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter). 

\n

Most clients have a specific outcome in mind for learners when they initiate an e-learning project. So how do you make sure learners reach the desired learning destination? By creating clear objectives, or milestones, that move learners toward the goal in a specific, measurable way. 

\n

In this article we’ll look at why learning objectives are important, what makes them “good” (or “bad”), and how to craft solid e-learning objectives for your courses. Here we go!

\n

Why Learning Objectives Are Important

\n

Learning objectives are the cornerstone of every e-learning course. They’re the reason you’re creating the course. They guide you as you select the content and activities to include. And they help you determine whether your course has been effective.

\n

So basically, without learning objectives you won’t know why you’re creating the course, what content to include, what activities to choose, or how to gauge the success of your course. Seems pretty important when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

\n

What Makes Learning Objectives “Good”

\n

Despite their importance, all too often learning objectives are vague and unclear. Say you’re creating a course for mortgage company employees on how to process FHA loans. The goal may seem clear on the surface: you want learners to understand how to process FHA loans. But how will you know if your learners have reached that goal? You won’t—because understanding isn’t something you can measure. 

\n

“Good” learning objectives are SMART objectives. They’re:

\n

\n
• Specific
\n
• Measurable
\n
• Achievable
\n
• Relevant 
\n
• Time-related
\n

\n

Let’s take a closer look at how to use this simple formula to write your learning objectives. 

\n

Writing SMART Learning Objectives

\n

How do you write SMART learning objectives? Start by taking a step back. Think about the smaller tasks that learners need to accomplish to achieve the larger goal. 

\n

Then choose a specific, measurable action verb that accurately describes what learners need to accomplish. For example, do they need to be able to recall a product name? Explain a concept? Evaluate the risks and benefits of different choices? Avoid using verbs like understand or know; they’re difficult (read: impossible) to measure. Check out Bloom’s Taxonomy for a list of verbs that work well for learning objectives.

\n

Instead of: 

\n

At the end of the course, learners will know how to process an FHA loan

\n

Try:

\n

At the end of the course, learners will be able to:

\n

\n
• identify the documents required
\n

\n

\n
• identify the credit requirements
\n

\n

\n
• identify the employment requirements
\n

\n

Let’s check those objectives against our SMART criteria to make sure we’ve covered everything:

\n

\n
• Are they specific? Yes. They outline three specific requirements the learners need to be able to identify. 
\n

\n

\n
• Are they measurable? Yes. You could present learners with a multiple response question for each to determine whether or not they can correctly identify the requirements.
\n

\n

\n
• Are they achievable? Yes. If the course explains to the learners how to identify these requirements, they should be able to do it.
\n

\n

\n
• Are they relevant? Yes. Assuming the course content is focused on how to identify these requirements.
\n

\n

\n
• Are they time-bound? Yes. When will the learner know how to identify these requirements? At the end of the course.
\n

\n

Now those are some SMART objectives! You’ll be able to use them as a guide to build a helpful course and measure its effectiveness.

\n

The Bottom Line

\n

Without solid learning objectives, you’ll be hard-pressed to build an effective e-learning course. After all, how can you choose relevant content and activities if you don’t know what learners need to be able to do after taking the course? And if you can’t measure whether they’ve reached those objectives, you won’t know whether your course was successful in helping them do that. 

\n

So next time you start a new e-learning project, be sure to think carefully about your learning objectives and ensure they’re SMART before you start building out your course. 

\n

Looking for more instructional design tips? Check out these helpful articles:

\n

\n
• An Introduction to Instructional Design
\n
• An Introduction to the ADDIE Model for Instructional Designers
\n
• An Introduction to SAM for Instructional Designers
\n
• An Introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy for Instructional Designers
\n

\n

Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter). 

Thanks Nicole, you've made this look really simple.

I'm working on a prerequisite \"knowledge\"-oriented tutorial right now for our Level 1 software class. The three-day class is where they will actually learn how to 'do' everything. The prerequiste tutorial is meant to give them some foundation knowledge on the architecture before they start class. I'm having trouble coming up with actionable objectives. It really is some stuff the trainer wants them to \"know\" and \"understand\" before they come learn how to apply it in the software. They want to save some class time. Do you have any tips on creating something effective and not just an info dump for something that is very info-oriented?

Hi Heather - Have you tried a list of action verbs to help the development process? I find they help me clarify objectives to make them much more specific than I could without them. I like Bloom's Taxonomy Action Verbs. It is clean and simple - so clear and easy to follow. Unfortunately the Google link is anything but - so just do a search for \"Bloom's Taxonomy Action Verbs\" or \"action verbs for learning objectives\" and try some out. Hope this helps.

Hi Heather! A lot of people encounter this situation when designing a new course. The goal is to begin the performance-based part of training with participants who share a common skill level in the basics. In setting measurable learning objectives around base knowledge such as the architecture, consider focusing on lower-level skills. For example: recite the parts of the architecture, recall the purpose of each part of the architecture, etc. For participants who can 'do' that already, consider learning objectives around mid-level skills, such as: chart the workflow for [xyz process using the architecture], list common failures that occur [in the xyz process they charted], explain underlying causes of common failures in [doing xyz with the architecture], describe how to recover from [xyz failure]. Once the base knowledge can be demonstrated, you're ready to move on to designing the performance-based part of your course, which is what most people think of as the 'doing.' Does that help? Good luck!

Hi Heather. For me good objectives start with accurately selecting verbs to describe what students will do in the course so the objectives can be used to guide the content, activities, and assessments.

When the instructor is not clear on what they want you see phrases like: \"Students will be able to demonstrate...\" when they do not actually demonstrate anything. I find a backwards design approach can help in these situations. How does the instructor plan to measure whether students have the prerequisite knowledge? If it is an automated quiz, for example, what actions will they take to answer the questions? What will students actually do during the quiz to show competence? A matching activity? Create a list? Order the steps of an analysis?

Students will match the physical structures of the Java coding architecture to their functions to a standard of 90% correct before beginning this course.

Students will list the ten most important parts of the Java coding architecture before beginning this course.

Students will plan their analysis of a coding project by naming the nine steps of code analysis (I'm making this up)and ordering them along a timeline.

I think for a prerequisite course, having all four pieces of the formal objective is helpful. The audience, the action, the conditions of performance and the standard. In many if not most cases, we tend to narrow the objectives to the audience and the verb when, particularly in e-learning, we need all four to give students a clear idea of what is expected.

For those who want more on verbs in objectives, here's a helpful link to Bloom's Taxonomy: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/effective-teaching-practices/revised-blooms-taxonomy/revised-blooms-taxonomy-flash-version

Enjoy!