Article:
Overall I think this article brings up some good points. I do have some issues with the implementation and think it takes the wrong direction but the overall message is a good one. Here was my response to the article that I posted in linkedin in the ASTD group forum. Let me know your thoughts:
“I like the idea of telling learners why they are going through this training ie why its important. I actually cannot imagine designing instruction that does not include that as all training should have learners apply and use the knowledge (ie problem solving/application learning objectives). So if learners are using the information they learned in a valuable way (good designed instruction with application/problem solving learning objectives), wouldnt that be better than only telling them why its important but rather include having them actually use/apply the material for their job? It seems that if learners did that, they would not be questioning why they are going through the instruction unless the material was not relevant to their job. I would mark that as very poorly designed instruction with probably bad learning objectives/bad assessment/bad content/bad instructional designers/etc
As far as adding the E to instructional objectives, well that may be overkill. I think it might be adding to the increased jargon you mention. I usually never write ABCD learning objectives for my learners but always modify them and use ABCD where appropriate. For instance, I may not say the A because the learners understand that the A is them (the learner). But the A is important to be included in the design (design document/analysis) for the ISDer. E should be a learning objective where learners apply and use the knowledge (apply/rules/procedures/problem solving).
To answer the question, are learning objectives as valuable as we think they are? Well do they guide the design of instruction and let the learners know what they are expected to be assessed on? If so, then the answer is yes because that is what they are designed to do. They are not designed to tell the user why they are important, rather to tell what is being done. There should be learner objectives in the design/content that actually tells the learner why they material is valuable ie how can this be applied, and have them apply it. I do agree that training that does not include that piece of information for each high level objective is very poorly designed. All learning material needs to be applied and reach that problem solving level of learning.”