Effects on Student Achievement of Behavioral and Nonbehavioral Objectives

Educators disagree on the relative merits of stating classroom objectives behaviorally or nonbehaviorally and have done little to add data to their argument. An experiment was conducted in the field of social science where one of three lists of objectives—one list nonbehavioral, the other two behavioral--was randomly assigned to participating high school social studies teachers who were instructed to teach objectives in their classes. Unit sampling was used and eighteen classrooms were involved. Students were measured, using a form of item sampling, on the acquisition of the five skills stated in the behavioral objectives as well as on eighteen transfer skills. Teachers’ faulty understanding of objectives, indicated by their inability to provide relevant classroom practice and to identify, when asked, test items measuring given objectives, may have accounted for lack of differences.