Kubie - Unknown - Teaching for Behavioral Objectives

8/3/2019 Kubie - Unknown - Teaching for Behavioral Objectives

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CENTRAL issue in the curriculum field is the dilemma, perhaps oversimplified, between discipline and freedom.Lawrence S . Kubie stated it most clearly:To put the questionevenmore specifically,the educator must ask, "How can I equip thechild with the facts and the tools which he willneed in life, without interfering with the freedom with which he will be able to use themafter he has acquired them?" W e have learnedthat both input-overload through the excessive

use of grill and drill, and input-underloadthrough excessive permissiveness, may tumblethe learner into the same abyss of paralysis andignorance (1).The aimof this paperis to argue that byaccepting the basic assumption that the p ri

mary purpose of schooling is to change thebehavior of studentsinspecific predeterminedways, schools are only making the problemdefined by Kubie more acute. In addition,this paperasserts that activities maybe justified for inclusion in the curriculum ongroundsother thanthosebased on theefficacyof the activity for specifically changing thebehaviors of students. It is also proposedthat schools, while accepting a minimumnumber of training responsibilities, shouldtake as their m ajor purpose one of involvingstudents in activities which have no presetobjectives, but which meet other specifiedcriteria.

Teaching fo r Behavio ral ObjectiveRegardless of the underlying baseswhich curricula are selected for inclusiona program, amajorproblem is that of jusing the activities children are asked to

perience. Clearly, the selection proalways involves subjective and value-reljudgments.Consider the junior high school teacof science in his efforts to defend thehavioral objectives of his program. He margue that a particular objective is justion the grounds that it is related to studsuccess in senior high school; that thejective has traditionallybeen taught as aof thecurriculum; that it reflectsthe behaof scientists and as such is important tostudents; or more simply, that the objecis "in the book." None of these justificatieither singly or collectively, seems especiconvincing.

The problem is seen most clearly inaffective domain. Lay persons and prosionals alike have long asked, "What vashould be taught?" Krathwohl, Bloom,Masia (2) have argued that one reawhich partially accounts for the erosionaffective objectives in our schools isteachers hesitate to impose values on tstudents through the lever of giving graOn theotherhand, teachers seem to feel


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manipulating students in the cognitive domain is ethical. For instance, a scienceteacher may want his students to acquire behaviors associatedwith thescientificmethod.Manifestly, there is no one scientificmethod,just as there is no one view of justice, yetteachers seem to feel no compunction about"forcing" students to learn the scientificmethod they havein mind while shying awayfrom teachingone viewofjustice.It is important in terms of the centralthesis of this paper to consider the long rangeimplications a teacherand his students mustaccept once it has been decided that all students are to acquire a specific instructionalbjective. Theteacher's taskbecomes atonceifficult and tedious. He must inform hisstudents of the objective to which they arcexpected to aspire; hemust convince them ofthe relevance of this objective to their lives;

must give students the opportunity toctice the behavior being taught; he mustagnose individual difficulties encounteredy members of his group; hemustmake preiptions of assignments based on his diagses and repeat the cycle again and again.eedless to say, this "method" of instructionas proved itself effective, if notprovocative.is the training paradigm perfected duringoth WorldWars andutilized extensively inhe armed forces and in industry to prepareersons for specific responsibilities.

It is the rare teacher who implementsthis procedure with the precision implied bythe foregoing description. Few teachershave the energy, the knowledge importantformaking diagnoses, the memory needed torecall prescriptions, or the feedback capabilities of a computer. The ultimate trainingprogram is theresearch-based IPI modelusedexperimentally in a few schools throughoutthe country. This observation is not meantto fault teachers as a group but merely to observe that in terms of the ways schools areorganized, for example, teacher-studentratios, availability of special technical assistance, etc., only the most gifted and dedicated teachers canoffer an effective trainingprocedure to students. So insteadof a rigorous training paradigm, most students arepresented with "grill and drill" techniques,as cited by Kubie, repetitious to some andmeaningless to others. Yet even if all programs could be set up on the basis of behavioral objectives and evenif strict trainingparadigms could be established to meet theobjectives, who could argue thatsuch a program would be other than tedious and ultimately stultifying? This last commentapplies both to the students and to the* James D. Raths, Director, Bureau of Educational Research and Field Services, College ofEducation, University ofMaryland, College Park


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teacher. Usually, teaching for objectives isdull work. Most of the student responsesare familiar ones and are anticipated by ateacher who is fully aware of the range ofpossible problems students might meet inacquiring the behavior. Hopefully, bothteachers and students aspire to somethingother than this.Teaching Without Specific Objectives

To suggest that teachers planprogramswithoutspecific instructionalobjectives seemsto fly in the face of many sacred beliefsthose dealing with progress, efficiency, success, and even rationality. On the otherhand, such a proposal evidently does not flyin the face of currentpractices. Much to thedistress of empiricists (3, 4), teachers dofrom time to time invite children to participate in activities for which specificbehavioralobjectives are rarely preset. Examples ofsome of these activities include taking fieldtrips, acting in dramatic presentations, having free periods in school, participating inschool governments, putting out a classnewspaper, and many others. While teachers evidently hope that students, as individuals, will acquire learnings from theseactivities, the learnings are generally notpreset nor are they imposed on all the children in the class.Instead, teachers may intend that theseactivities will provide students with some ofthe skills theywill need in life, either throughthe direct experience they undergo in theclassroom in carrying out the activity orthrough subsequent follow-up activities. Inaddition, teachers learn to expect that somechildren wil l become bored with any singleactivity whatever it is. This response canbe foundin mostclassrooms at any one timeand teachers simply make plans to involvethose students suffering from momentaryennui in other provocative activities later inthe day or week.While carrying out a program composedof such activities, a teacher must performmany important and difficult tasks, but thefunctions seem less perfunctory and morechallenging than those carried out under the

training regimen described previously.teacher must listen to the commentsquestions of his students with the intentclarifying their views and perceptions;must encourage students to reflectupon thexperiences through writings, poetry, drings, and discussions; he must react to thresponses in ways that suggest individactivities studentsmay consider in followup on their experiences. In these wateachers provide an environment thatsufficiently evocative to encourage childto becomeinformed and capable, but ininvidual ways that would be difficult to antpate either in the central offices of a boof education or in the test constructlaboratorieslocated atPaloA lto or Iowa CCriteria fo rWorthwhile Activities

If we accept the argument that thejor focus of our schools shouldbe away fractivities designed to bring about specbehavioral changes in students, then on wbasis can activities be justified for inclusin the curriculaof our schools? This sectadvances some criteria for identifying actties that seem to have some inherent woThe criteria set down here for identifyworthwhile activities are not advancedconvince anyone of theirwisdom as a seindividually, but merely to suggest vastatements that might be used to justhe selection of particular activities incurriculum.The value statements are couchedterms that can best be used in the followmanner. A s a teacher contemplates antivity for his classroom, each of the vastatements may suggest ways the actimight be altered. For instance, if a teacwere to consider an assignment whichquires students to write a reportonBrazilmight revise his assignment to include onmore of the value dimensions suggestedthe criteria. With all other things beequal, the revised assignment would be csidered, according to these criteria, mworthwhile than the original one.A relevant question to raise at this p


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, "Worthwhile for whom?" The answerssarily is for the child and for society.hile there can be no empirical support for response, neither can any other activityr behavioral objective be justified throughata.1 . A ll other things being equal, onetivity is more worthwhile tlian another ifpermits children to make informed choicescarrying out the activity and to reflect on consequences of their choices.An activity that requires children to ct topics for study, resources for use, oria for the display of ideas, after someloration of alternatives, is more worth

hile than one that provides children withoopportunities or another that gives choicesrather mundane levels, for example, ace of now or this afternoon, or using aen or pencil.

2. A l l other things being equal, one acivity is more worthwhile than another if itns to students active roles in the learningion rather than passive ones.An activity that channels students' ener

ies into such roles as panel members, reearchers, orators, observers, reporters,rviewers, actors, surveyors, performers,ole players,or participants in simulation exrcises such as games is more worthwhile one which assigns students to tasksas listeningin class to the teacher, fillingut a ditto sheet, responding to a drill session,r participating in a routine teacher-lediscussion.

3. A ll other things being equal, one acivity is more worthwhile than another if it students to engage in inquiryinto ideas,plications of intellectual processes, or curt problems, either personal or social.

An activity that directs children to be acquainted with ideas that transcenditional curricular areas, ideas such as, beauty, worth, justice, or self-worth;that focuses children on intellectual

ocesses such as testing hypotheses, idenifying assumptions, or creating originalieces of work which communicate personaldeas or emotions; or onethat raises questions

about current social problems such as pollution, war and peace, or of personal humanrelations is more worthwhile than one thatis directed towardplaces (Mexicoor Africa),objects (birds or simple machines), or persons (Columbus or Shakespeare).

4. A ll other things being equal, one activity is more worthu'hile than another if itinvolves children with realia.An activity that encourages children totouch, handle, apply, manipulate, examine,and collect real objects, materials, and artifacts either in the classroom or on field trips

is more worthwhile than one that involveschildren in the use of pictures, models, ornarrative accounts.5. A l l other things being equal, one ac

tivity is more worthwhile than another ifcompletion of the activity may be accomplished sitccessfidly by children at severaldifferent levels of ability.An activity that can be completed suc

cessfully by children of diverse interests andintellectual backgrounds is more worthwhilethan one which specifies in rigid terms onlyone successful outcome of the activity.Examples of the former are thinking assignments such as imagining, comparing, classifying, or summarizing, all of which allowyoungsters to operate on their own levelswithout imposing a single standard on theoutcomes.

6. A ll other things being equal, oneactivity is more worthwhile than another ifit asks students to examine i n a new settingan idea, a n application of an intellectualprocess,or a current problemwhichhasbeenpreviously studied.

An activity that builds on previous student work by directing a focus into n ovellocations, n ew subject matter areas, or differentcontexts is more worthwhile thanonethat is completely unrelated to the previouswork of the students. (This position is anexample of one that is impossible to buildintoevery activity presented to students. Obviously a balance is needed between new-areas of study and those which arerelated toprevious work. Value dimension number six

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asserts the need for some continuity in aprogram.)7. A ll other things being equal, one activity is more worthwhile than another if it

requires students to examine topics or issuesthat citizens in our society do not normallyexamine and that are typically ignored bythe major communication media in thenation.

A n activity that deals with matters ofsex, religion, war and peace, the profit motive, treatment of minorities, the workings ofthe courts, the responsiveness of local governments to the needs of the people,thesocialresponsibilities of public corporations, foreign influences in American media, socialclass, and similar issues is more worthwhilethan an activity which deals with mundane"school topics" such as quadratic equationsor short stories topics usually consideredsafeandtraditional.

8. A ll other things being equal, oneactivity is more worthwhile than another ifit involves students and faculty members in "risk" taking not a risk of life or limb, buta risk of success or failure.

Activities that may receive criticismfrom supervisors andparents on the basis of"what's usually done," that may fail becauseof unforeseen events or conditions, are moreworthwhile than activities that are relativelyrisk-free using approaches which are condoned openly by the community and theschool administrationandwhich have servedteachers well in the.past.

9. A ll other things being equal, oneactivity is more worthwhile than another if itrequires students to rewrite, rehearse, andpolish their initial efforts.

Rather than having students perceiveassignments as "tasks to complete," activitiesshould provide time and opportunity for students to revise their themes in the light ofcriticism,rehearse a play in front of an audience, or practice an interviewing techniqueto be used in a project so that they will beginto see the value of doing a taskwell. A ctivities that communicate to students that theirefforts are approximationsof perfect work

andthateffortscanbe made to improve thework are more worthwhile than ones thamerely suggest that once an assignmentcompleted the first time, it is finished.

10. A ll other things being equal, onactivity is more worthwhile than anotherifinvolves students in the applicationand matery of meaningful rules, standards, odisciplines.

Using standards derived from studenas well as authorities, panel discussionscabe disciplined by procedures; reporting odata can be disciplined by considerations ocontrol; essays can be regulated by consierationsof style andsyntax. Activities whicfoster a senseofmeaningful discipline, eitheimposed or chosen by the children themselves, are more worthwhile than ones thignore the need for the application of meaingful rules orstandards.

11. A ll other things being equal, onactivity is more worthwhile than another ifgivesstudentsachance to share the planningthe carrying out of a plan, or the resultsan activity with others.

One facet of the current trends in indvidualizing instruction found in some prgrams is that of minimizing the chance fochildren to work in groups and to learn thproblems inherent in any situation thatcalfor individual desires to yield at timesgroup requirements. A n activity that askchildren to play a role in sharing responsbilities with others is more worthwhile thaone which limits such opportunity.

12. A ll other things being equal, onactivity is more worthwhile than another ifis relevant to the expressed purposes of thstudents.

While a prizing of children's purposmight well be protected by the value dimesion previously expressed, of providinchoices for children, it is important enougto stress in avalue dimension of its own. Astudents are invited to express their owinterests and to define problems in whicthey feel a personal involvement, and as thactivities of the curriculum reflect those iterests, the ensuing activity will be mo


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worthwhile than one that is based on attributions of interests andconcernsmade byteachers.Obviously, not all of the value components identified in this section can be builtinto a single activity. Also, not all the valueslisted deserve the same amount of emphasis

in terms of time within a given program.For example, some assignments involving"risk" may be titillating for students andteachers, but a program which has more thana few activities reflecting the "risk" valuewould probably be out of balance. Finally,the list above is not exhaustive. It is meantto illustrate values that might be used indefining a program of worthwhile activities.The value-criteria are merely working hypotheses at this time, subject to analysis ifnot empirical testing. Others are encouragedto develop their own set ofcriteria.Caveat

It must be emphasized thatall teachers,whether working at the first grade level or ingraduate school, generally need to do someteaching for objectives as well as some teaching without specific objectives. Whiteheadhas suggested that in terms of the rhythmofeducation, many more of the tasks assignedto younger children should be justified onnon-instrumental values, while those assigned at the upper levels might reasonablycontain more performance-related activities (5).

EvaluationAll of theforegoingis not to suggestthaschool programs need not be evaluated. Ain the past, those activities which are justfied in terms of the objectives they are designed to meet can be evaluated througcriterion-referenced achievement tests. Otheprocedures need to be developed to describschool programs in terms of the characteristics of the activities which comprise thprograms. The following procedure mighserve as a way of communicating informatioabout a given courseorprogramwhich woulbe meaningful to administrators and parentsAssume that a teacher accepted as thmajor values of his program those prevously identified in this paper. (Presumably

this procedure could be used for any set ovalues.) He could periodically describe hiprogram using a chart similar to the onpresented in Table 1. The chart could bcompleted according to the followinggrounrules:Column 1: This column would simply number the activity for purposes of identificationColumn 2: This notationwould place th

activity in the sequence of activities carried ouduring the reportingperiod.Column 3: This entry would be anotheway of labeling the topics under study forpuposes of identification.

Column 4: The number of students whsuccessfully completed the activity would b


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entered here to communicate the extent towhich all students in the class were involvedwith the activity.Column 5: To give emphasis to the cen-trality of the activity to the scope of the course,the estimation of the average number of hoursstudents spent on the activity would be enteredin this column.Column 6: I n this column, teachers wouldcheck those components of the activity whichin their eyes serve to justify it in their program.In the example entered in the table, the teacherhas justified an activity, not in terms of whatstudents can do on finishing it that they couldnot do before, but on the grounds that it gavestudents a chance to make a choice (#1); involved them in active roles C#2); included experiences with realia (#4); provided variouslevels of achievement which could be judgedas successful C#5); and required students to

apply meaningfulstandards to their work (#10).If each line of every teacher's log werepunched on a computer card, a programcould easily be written which would yieldoutput describing the percentage of timespent on each activity, and the number ofchildren who were involved with programsunder each value dimension. At present, nogeneralizations are available which could beused to rate definitively a given course de

scription as adequate or inadequate, based onthese data. Nevertheless, if a science program profile indicated that almost no timewas spent with students in active roles, ifstudents were almost never involved withrealia, and if studentshad fewopportunitiesto apply meaningful rules or standards to

their work, then a person sharing the valuespoused in this paper would have serioreservations about the quality of that paticular science program.In summary, the argument has bepresented that an activity can be justifiedterms other than those associated withinstrumental value for changing the behaviof students. In addition, this paper has prsented a set of criteria for identifying wortwhile activities, proposeda modest procedufor describing programs in terms of thocriteria, and issued an invitation for otheto present alternative criteria. Most of all,has asked that some concern be directtoward the quality of opportunities forexpeences offered throughourschools.

1. L awrence S. Kubie. "Research on Ptecting Preconscious Functions in Education." (n.Mimeo. p. 4. Also see this paper in: A. HarPassow, editor. Nurturing Individual PotentiWashington, D.C.: Association for Supervision aCurriculum Development, 1964. pp. 28-42.2. D. R . Krathwohl, B. S . Bloom, and B . Masia. Ta\~ouomy of Educational Objectives Hanbook II : Affective Domain. NewYork: David McKCompany, Inc., 1964. p. 16.3. \V . James Popham. The Teacher-Empi

cist. L os Angeles: Aegeus Press, 1965.4. Henry H. Walbesser. C onstructing Bhavioral Objectives. C ollege Park: Bureau of Edcational Research and Field Services, University Maryland, 1970.5. A. N. Whitehead. T he Aims of EducatioNew York: Mentor Books, 1929. pp. 27ff. Q

MaXJneDlinfeS Pmlessor of Education, Indiana University

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Kubie - Unknown - Teaching for Behavioral Objectives