Learning objectives in non-formal education

Why set the learning objectives?

Competences

The primary goal of non-formal education in youth work is the development of competences, which are most often regarded as complex abilities consisting of three components – knowledge, skills, and attitudes. This approach to defining competences reflects the aim of non-formal education to educate young people as whole personalities who know something, can do something, and share a set of values. When talking about the development of young people’s competences in the context of youth work, we usually think of improving all three components.

Two real-world examples may help illustrate the tripartite concept of competences – the competence to drive a car and the competence to give first aid.

Concerning the first example, a competent driver must know the traffic signs and their meaning, the rules of road traffic, and at least basic facts about their car, e.g., whether it runs on petrol or on diesel. A competent driver must also be able to do a lot of things, e.g., to start the car, to change gears, to park, to reverse, to refuel and so on. Finally, a good driver must have the right attitudes. For example, they should respect regulations and speed limits, value safety, and be considerate to other road users.

Similarly, the competence to give first aid includes some knowledge, e.g., what a recovery position looks like, what is the chest compression rate, or what is the emergency phone number. In addition to knowledge, a competent first aider must also possess some skills – they should be able to provide rescue breathing, to do chest compression in a correct position, or to tilt the person’s head to lift the tongue off the back of the throat. But knowledge and skills alone do not guarantee that someone will provide first aid instead of running away. In this case, the attitude might literally be a question of life or death.

Competences and learning objectives

When developing young people’s competences, such as teamwork competence, the first step is to identify what exactly they need to learn. Do they need to gain knowledge about team roles and principles of teamwork? Do they need to find out what role they naturally take on in a team? Do they need to practice skills required for roles less typical of them? Do they need to change their attitude towards teamwork to prefer working together over acting individually? Any non-formal learning activity should be designed according to the participants’ needs and priorities. A programme with a main focus on practicing the skills will look differently than a programme that aims at the development of attitudes.

During one of our projects, we were working with volunteers who wanted to organize an exhibition about poverty in African countries in a local café. When we discussed the intended purpose of the exhibition, we found out that their aim was to sensitize the visitors to the issue of poverty. We knew that the café was frequented by young people who themselves were involved in various social projects, and therefore were already sensitive to poverty. The exhibition would have had minimal effect on their attitudes. Another idea was to present the exhibition in a place where it could target people who were not concerned about poverty. But we concluded that a static exhibition with photos and short texts would more likely attract the attention of those who were already interested in the topic. Besides that, it would most likely widen the knowledge of the visitors rather than changing their attitudes. We did not exclude the possibility that a few visitors might change their mind after seeing the pictures of misery in Africa, but was an exhibition the most effective way to refine attitudes? Wouldn’t it be more effective to organize a discussion at local school or to carry out a simulation game or a role-play?

Creating an effective non-formal education programme for young people is quite a challenge. When preparing the programmes, one of your first thoughts should be on competences and their three components (knowledge, skills, and attitudes). This way of thinking about non-formal learning activities can considerably improve the quality and impact of your work.

A clear vision of whether you want to primarily concentrate on knowledge, skills, or attitudes (or on their combination) can help you set the learning objectives which form the starting point for all the next steps in the preparation of any learning activity. They determine how much time you will spend on what topics, what methods and techniques you will use, and how the different parts of the activity will be sequenced. Therefore, it is very important to define the learning objectives properly and as specifically as possible.

How to define learning objectives?

Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives

In addition to defining what competences and competence components you plan to develop by the activity, you should think about the level of expected learning outcomes. For example, in terms of knowledge, it makes a difference whether the participants should learn that something exists, understand how it works, or know how it is used in practice. In terms of skills, they can learn to do something according to the instructions or independently. Concerning attitudes, you might want to convince them to consider adopting an attitude or to encourage them to spread it among others.

When defining the levels of expected learning outcomes, you can use Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives. It was created in the mid-20th century by an American psychologist Benjamin Samuel Bloom who worked in the field of educational psychology. Based on his original taxonomy, several versions were gradually developed by his followers. In this material, we use an adaptation of a version that defines levels in three domains – cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (skills) and affective (attitudes). We adapted it to reflect the specific context of non-formal education in youth work and tested it with different target groups over several years. Finally, we came to a version which is presented in the table below.

Level	Knowledge	Skills	Attitudes
1	Awareness	Observation	Realisation
2	Comprehension	Exploration	Consideration
3	Application	Assisted practice	Imitation
4	Analysis	Independent practice	Preference
5	Synthesis	Routine practice	Self-identification
6	Evaluation	Problem solving	Advocacy
7	Transfer	Creative modification	Dissemination

Bloom’s Taxonomy in practice

Let’s explain the levels in more detail. For each competence level, we give an explanation and two examples of possible learning objectives related to the competence “to apply a partnership approach in youth work” and to the competence “to prepare healthy vegetarian meals”.