Aims, goals and objectives

Education is a goal directed activity. Without an aim and goal education is just like a ship in the sea which has no specified direction to move. Learning at school is goal directed and students attend the school to attain certain goals. Teachers facilitate them to achieve their goals. Aims provide a clear direction and focus to the educational system (AIOU, 1995; Marsh, 1997).

Aims:
Aims refer to general guidelines for the teachers that describe expected life outcomes based on some values. Aims are stated in broader terms. They can not be achieved completely. They are broadly phrased statements borrowed from philosophy. They can be applied to the educational system rather than an individual school and classroom.
For example aims can be state as:
To inculcate the Islamic values among the learners.
To cultivate the personal talent and interest among the learners.
To create a desire for learning among the learners.
Aims are stated implicitly and idealistically.

Goals:
Goals refer to school outcomes which can be achieved through certain programmes. They can be derived from the aims. They are more explicit as compare to aims.
For example,

To develop the research skills among the students through project method of teaching learning process.
(Goodlad as cited in Marsh 1997) gives the following common goals for the school.
Academic goals:
These goals consist of two sub categories of mastery of basic skills and fundamental intellectual development. The intellectual development element includes problem solving and ability to evaluate the knowledge.

In an empirical study (Goodlad as cited in Marsh 1997) noted that academic goals are perceived by the students, teachers and parents as major goals at all levels of schooling. The distribution of emphasis on the other three categories is very similar for teachers and parents.
Vocational goals.
These goals are aimed at assisting the learners in making decisions related to his/her career. They also help them to decide a better job choice.
Social, civic and cultural goals.
These goals include interpersonal understanding of the learners to each other in the society. Through which moral and ethical values can also be developed.
Personal goals.
These goals aim at the development of emotional and physical well being of the learners. These goals emphasise the self development and self awareness of the learners.

Objectives.
Objectives provide great assistance to the teachers in planning process of teaching. A well planned teaching is based on well stated objectives. Many teachers resist using objectives in their teaching and they think that it will make their teaching limited. But without objectives there is no evaluation and without evaluation there is no teaching. Objectives provide a focus of teaching for the teachers. Through these the students can be given feedback and the result can also be communicated with the parents easily.
There are two types of objectives. They are instructional objectives and behavioural objectives.
Instructional objectives:
These objectives provide a road map to the teacher to select appropriate content, strategies, resources and assessment. These can be developed for a unit. They do not need to specify everything in them. Criteria for instructional objectives are:
Scope: they should be broader enough to include all the desired learning outcomes.
Consistent: they should be consistent with each other.
Suitability: they should be suitable according to the level of the learners.
Validity: reflect and state what one intended to.
Feasibility: attainable by all the students.
Specificity: avoid ambiguity and state precisely.
Example of instructional objectives are:

By end of the unit the students will be able to have a strong understanding of:
animals’ kingdom
Vertebrates and invertebrates animals.

Behavioural objectives:
These objectives are classroom objectives based on the observable behaviour. They can be observed by the teachers while the learners perform. There are three criteria to develop these objectives by the teacher. These are:
Performance: the performance of the learner must be based on observable behaviour. So for this purpose, the teachers may use certain action verbs in the objectives which help the teachers to observe the behaviour while performing by the students. For example, write, define, add, and calculate.
Condition: this specifies the condition under which the learners perform the behaviour. For example, in the notebook, in the worksheets, in pair, in group and individually.

Criteria: it is the minimum acceptable level of performance of the learner under the specified condition. It can be expressed in terms of quality, speed and accuracy. For example, within 5 minute, 80% accuracy and at least 5 questions.

Example of behavioural objective is:

The students will be able to:
Write at least 5 differences between animal and plant cells in their notebooks using the given diagram individually.









The relationship between aims, goals and objectives can be shown through the continuum.


are shaped are justified are given directed

Aim goals objectives instructions &
learning outcomes

specific
emphasis
is given are actualized are implemented in




So aims in education represent life outcomes which are general in nature. Goals refers to school outcomes and objectives refer to specific outcomes of classroom instruction

















References


Allama Iqbal Open University ( 1993). Curriculum planning and evaluation. Islamabad: author.

Marsh, C.J (1997). Planning, management and ideology: Key concept for understanding curriculum 2. London: Routledge Falmer.