Outcome-Based Education

(OBE)
WHAT IS IT?
Outcome –based Education: Critical Issues and Answers
William G. Spady (1994)

Wilma De Castro Salas (Discussant)

Instructor 1- DHVSU Mexico Campus
- Outcome-Based
Education movement
theorist, writer, developer,
and leader
- Milwaukee, Oregon
- University of Chicago –
holds degrees in
humanities, education,
and sociology
- academic appointments
Sociology of Education at
Harvard University
Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education (1967-1973)

William G. Spady
 Outcome-Based Education
means:

- clearly focusing and organizing everything in an

educational system around what is essential for all
students to be able to do successfully at the end of their
learning experiences.

- starting with a clear picture of what is important for

students to be able to do.

- organizing curriculum, instruction, and assessment to

make sure this learning ultimately happens.
 Keys to Outcome-Based System:
1) Developing a clear set of learning outcomes
around which all of the system's components
can he focused

2) Establishing the conditions and

opportunities within the system
that enable and encourage all
 What exactly are outcomes?
-clear learning results that we want students to
demonstrate at the end of significant learning
experiences

- not values, beliefs, attitudes, or psychological states of mind

-what learners can actually do with what they

know and have learned, tangible application of
what has been learned

- actions and performances that embody and reflect

learner competence in using content, information, ideas,
and tools successfully
 outcomes :
- involve actual doing
*must be clearly defined according to the actions
or demonstration processes being sought

*must use observable action verbs like describe,

explain, design, or produce

occur at or after the end of a learning experience

Exit Outcomes ultimate result

 Exit Outcomes
- broad performance capabilities

- not specific curriculum skills

Specific curriculum knowledge and skills

- developed from and around the exit outcomes

- directly help students develop those broad performance

abilities
Who should have a voice in determining a state's or
district's outcomes?

community's key constituents and stakeholder groups

?
deliberate attempt to engage by most advanced models of
exit outcome design and development
 What does it mean to base education on outcomes?
- defining, deciding, organizing, structuring, focusing,
and operating what the system does according to
some consistent standard or principle

calendar - standard or base in education

throughout most of the 20th century

time - the key determining factor of all

components of the current system
*Most schools operate on time-based system.
 What should be done first before basing a system on
outcomes?
- states and districts must establish a clear framework of
learning

- districts must proceed to define, organize, structure, focus,

and operate their activities based on those culminating
outcomes
system based on outcomes
- gives top priority to ends, purposes, learning,
accomplishments, and results.

- decision making is consistent with these priorities.

 outcomes approach
- requires placing the system's traditional definers and
shapers time, procedures, programs, teaching, and
curriculum in a subordinate position

*essential shift from time to accomplishments often puts

actual learning result

“Outcome-based" directly
implies that outcomes
must take precedence over time.
 examples of out-come based
model
• Outcome-based systems go back at least 500 years to the
craft guilds of the Middle Ages in Europe.

• evolved into various forms of apprenticeship training

models

• institutionalized to design, deliver, and document

instruction
 contemporary examples of outcome-based models

military technical training

programs
ski schools
flight schools
scuba instruction
karate instruction
essential clearly defined
competence and
performance
 examples of performance credentialing
professional licensure of:
- Doctors
- Lawyers
- real estate brokers
- Cosmetologists
-merit and honor badges for Boy and Girl
Scouts
 examples
• differ considerably in terms of operational features
share two key things:
model is focused on a clearly defined performance result for
learners that is not compromised
WHAT and WHETHER students learn successfully

more important than 'WHEN and HOW they learn it

*successful learning results are more important than the schedule or

the methods
 OBE – not popular among schools?
profound change–shift America's economy and society

Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age

• Large-scale immigration and urbanization
• Public education expanded and institutionalized
• template for new education system had characteristics of the assembly-line
factory
• Result: Industrial Age model
WHEN and HOW students learn things
WHAT is learned and WHETHER it is learned well
 clock, schedule, calendar, and program

fixed, predefined, unwavering

definition and realization of student learning success

vague and highly variable

Program focus - clear performance expectations for students

- taught and assessed accordingly
e.g. Vocational/technical, business, and performing arts programs
 core academic curriculum - system's most
important programs

*Academic programs have typically embodied

very little of OBE's basic approaches to
curriculum design, instructional delivery, and
learning assessment.
 outcome-based models
- prevalent outside of education
- standardization is the opposite of what outcome based education
promotes
. How exactly is being "outcome-based" different from what schools have always done?
• When lists of characteristics describe how traditional education systems differ from outcome -based
systems, the main differences fall into four key areas:
• Outcome-based systems build everything on a clearly defined framework of exit outcomes. Curriculum,
instructional strategies, assessments, and performance standards are developed and implemented to
facilitate key outcomes. In OBE, curriculum, instruction, and assessment should be viewed as flexible
and alterable means for accomplishing clearly defined learning "ends."
• In contrast, traditional systems already have a largely predefined curriculum structure with an
assessment and credentialing system in place. They usually are not structured around clearly defined
outcomes expected of all students. By and large, curriculum and assessment systems are treated as
ends in themselves.
• Time in an outcome-based system is used as an alterable resource, depending on the needs of teachers
and students. Within reasonable constraints, time is manipulated to the best advantage of all learners
some students learn some parts of the curriculum sooner, while others accomplish those parts later.
• In the traditional system, just the opposite is true. Time defines most system features; it is an inflexible
constraint for teachers and students. The schedule and the calendar control student learning and
success.
• In an outcome-based system, standards are clearly defined, known, and "criterion-based" for all
students. As in the Girl and Boy Scouts, all students potentially are eligible to reach and receive full
credit for achieving any performance standard in the system. 'There are no quotas on who can he
successful or on what standards can he pursued.
• In contrast, the traditional system operates around a comparative/competitive approach to standards
linked to a pre