Write measurable objectives with performance, condition and criterion, using Bloom's revised taxonomy.
Why it matters
"Understand Git" is not an objective. You cannot see understanding, so you cannot check it, and two trainers would teach and test it completely differently. A measurable learning objective says what learners will be able to do at the end, in a way you can observe. It drives every later decision: activities, materials and assessments.
The parts of a good objective
Robert Mager's book Preparing Instructional Objectives (1962) set out three parts that are still the standard:
- Performance: an observable verb and what the learner does. "Create a branch and commit a change to it."
- Condition: the circumstances. "Given a practice repository and a terminal, without notes."
- Criterion: how well. "Within five minutes, with the commit appearing in
git logon the new branch."
Many teams use the ABCD version: Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree. In practice the audience is often stated once for the whole course.
Given a practice repository with a merge conflict in one file, new developers will resolve the conflict and complete the merge so that the project's tests pass, within ten minutes.
Bloom's taxonomy
Benjamin Bloom and colleagues published a taxonomy of educational objectives in 1956. Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl revised it in 2001. The revised cognitive process levels are:
| Level | Meaning | Example verbs | Git example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remember | Recall facts | list, name, define | Name the command that shows commit history |
| Understand | Explain meaning | explain, summarize, classify | Explain the difference between staging and committing |
| Apply | Use a procedure | use, run, carry out | Create a branch and commit to it |
| Analyze | Break down, find causes | compare, diagnose, debug | Diagnose why a push was rejected |
| Evaluate | Judge using criteria | choose, justify, critique | Choose merge or rebase for a given team policy and justify it |
| Create | Produce something new | design, plan, build | Design a branching workflow for a three-person team |
The revision also added a knowledge dimension (factual, conceptual, procedural, metacognitive), which is useful when you notice all your objectives are procedural.
Two cautions. First, the levels are not a strict ladder that every lesson must climb; a short how-to session can legitimately stop at Apply. Second, the verb alone does not make an objective measurable. "Analyze Git" is still vague. The task and the criterion do the real work.
Verbs to avoid
Understand, know, learn, appreciate, be aware of, be familiar with. They describe internal states. Replace each one by asking "how would I know they understand?" The answer is the real objective.
- Weak: "Understand merge conflicts."
- Better: "Given a conflicted file, identify the conflict markers and explain which lines came from each branch."
- Better still (job-relevant): "Resolve a two-file merge conflict so that the tests pass."
Write for the job, not the topic
In workplace training, start from what people will do on the job. Cathy Moore's action mapping approach asks "what do people need to do to reach the business goal?" before listing any content. If the team goal is "fewer broken builds on main", the key behaviors might be "run the tests before pushing" and "open a pull request rather than pushing to main", which may matter more than Git internals.
How many objectives?
For a 90-minute session, three to five objectives is typical. More than that usually means you are covering, not teaching. Each objective should map to at least one practice activity and one assessment item; you will build that map in the next lesson.
Common mistakes
- Writing what the trainer will do ("Introduce branching") instead of what learners will do.
- Using unmeasurable verbs.
- Objectives at Remember level when the job needs Apply or Analyze.
- Twelve objectives for one hour.
- Forgetting the condition, so learners practise with notes and are tested without them.
Quick recap
- An objective states observable performance, conditions and a criterion.
- Bloom's revised taxonomy helps you choose the right level of thinking.
- Replace "understand" with what you would see learners do.
- Start from job tasks, and keep the list short.
Try it
On the Do tab, rewrite vague goals as measurable objectives for a topic you know well.