"Clearly Stated Objectives"? (Unit 10)

This past week we compared two DE courses using the objectives criteria in our “Delivering Digitally” text.

As I did this, I compared our current course to one done by my organization—a “self-contained” archived internet CME program. One of the questions for the comparison was whether the objectives were stated clearly.

It appears that most of us (so far) have declared that the objectives for our course comparisons were stated clearly, though there are quite a few who (like me) feel that the objective of “gain knowledge in…..” for ADTED 531 is pretty vague and perhaps unmeasurable. But several people answered that the objectives were stated clearly by a stating that the objectives were clearly displayed—emphasizing that the objectives were on the syllabus or were visible to the learner before the course.

I wrote about this in the discussion board, but as the week has gone on, I am thinking about what the statement/criterion of "clearly stated objectives" means.

So while the statements of objectives may be visible and prominent, I don’t think that’s the same as actually being “clearly stated.” Maybe I am being very literal here, but to me, “clearly stated” means that they make sense, are understandable, are logical, and are in fact measurable.

Here are some objectives for an activity that I am developing right now for my organization—it’s focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC):

Following this program, participants should be able to:
 Use histology to select the best treatment regimen for patients with NSCLC.
 Use gene mutation analysis to select the best treatment regimen for patients with NSCLC.
 Determine whether stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), minimally invasive surgery, or conventional open surgery is appropriate for their patients with early stage NSCLC.

These strike me as pretty clear and absolutely measurable—we will use pre-posttests, performance in the activity case studies, and post-activity evaluations and interviews to assess the effectiveness of the activity.

What are others’ thoughts on this? And perhaps you have some other objectives from your own practice settings to share.