Thinking About Assignment Outcomes
Learning outcomes state specifically what learners will know or be able to do as the result of successfully participating in and completing their collaborative research project. Outcomes are typically presented as knowledge, skills, or attitudes that students will have upon completion of the project.
Strong learning outcomes have two predominate characteristics—the specific actions that are required of the learners must be both observable and measurable. Otherwise, learning outcomes cannot be authentically assessed.
Writing Outcomes
In order to keep yourself on track in making sure that outcomes are both observable and measurable, avoid using the words understand, learn, and appreciate in your outcomes. Instead, aim for action words to which you can attach assessment. You’ll find Bloom’s Taxonomy1 helpful for finding the most exact action word for a given learning situation. Here are some sample words.
| Cognitive Level | Activity Type | Action Word |
| Lower | Knowledge | Count, Define, Describe, Draw, Find, Identify, Label, List, Match, Name, Quote, Recall, Recite, Sequence, Tell, Write |
| Comprehension | Conclude, Demonstrate, Discuss, Explain, Generalize, Identify, Illustrate, Interpret, Paraphrase, Predict, Report, Restate, Review, Summarize, Tell | |
| Application | Apply, Change, Choose, Compute, Dramatize, Interview, Prepare, Produce, Role-play, Select, Show, Transfer, Use | |
| Higher | Analysis | Analyze, Characterize, Classify, Compare, Contrast, Debate, Deduce, Diagram, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Outline, Relate, Research, Separate |
| Synthesis | Compose, Construct, Create, Design, Develop, Integrate, Invent, Make, Organize, Perform, Plan, Produce, Propose, Rewrite | |
| Evaluation | Appraise, Argue, Assess, Choose, Conclude, Critic, Decide, Evaluate, Judge, Justify, Predict, Prioritize, Prove, Rank, Rate, Select |
1 Bloom, Benjamin S. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay and Company, 1956.
