Outcome-Based Education (OBE)

ReSearch on Outcome-Based Education (OBE)

Policies, Frameworks and Agreements

• The Washington Accord (1989) -
  • An Agreement to accept undergraduate engineering degrees obtained using OBE methods
  • Since 2014, Signatories include Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education

Concepts on Outcome-Based Education (OBE)

What is Outcome-Based Education?

• An Educational theory
  • Bases each part of an educational system around goals and outcomes.
• By end of each educational experience, each student should have achieved the goal
• No single specified style of teaching or assessment
• Classes, Opportunities and Assessments all help students to achieve specified outcomes
• Role of Faculty adapts when required into
  • instructor
  • trainer
  • Facilitator
  • Mentor

Where has OBE been Implemented?

• Phased Out: Australia & South Africa in early 1990s
• US: since 1994
• Hong Kong University Grants Committee: 2005 for universities
• Malaysia: 2008 for all public schools and tertiary education
  • Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) created framework with 8 levels of qualification within higher education covering 3 sectors: Skills, Vocational & Technical, Academic
• European Commission: 2012 Dec
  • European Qualifications Framework: Shift towards learning outcomes in primary and secondary schools throughout EU with lessons to have stronger link to employment through work-based Learning, with recognition of vocational training.
  • Goals for learning foreign languages, teachers continued education, importance of using technology
• India
  • The National Board of Accreditation: Promotes international quality standards for technical Education from 2017

What are the Positive and Negative Impacts of Outcome-Based Education?Positive

• Clarity: clear expectation of what needs to be accomplished by the end of the course.
  • Students will understand what is expected of them and teachers will know what they need to teach during the course.
  • In Team Teaching, Each team member, or year in school, will have a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished in each class, or at each level, allowing students to progress.
  • Those planning the curriculum are expected to work backwards once an outcome has been decided upon; they must determine what knowledge and skills will be required to reach the outcome.
• Flexibility to Instructors
  • instructors will be able to structure their lessons around the student’s needs. ( As OBE is meant to be a student-centered learning model)
  • instructors are free to teach their students using any method. (As OBE does not have a specific method of instruction,)
  • Instructors will also be able to recognize diversity among students by using various teaching and assessment techniques during their class.
• Comparison: OBE provides an opportunity for comparison across institutions.
  • On an individual level, institutions can look at what outcomes a student has achieved to decide what level the student would be at within a new institution.
  • On an institutional level, institutions can compare themselves, by checking to see what outcomes they have in common, and find places where they may need improvement, based on the achievement of outcomes at other institutions.
  • Comparisons across institutions allows
    • students to move between institutions with relative ease.
    • institutions can compare outcomes to determine what credits to award the student. With clearly articulated outcomes should allow institutions to assess the student’s achievements rapidly, leading to increased movement of students.
  • School to work transitions. A potential employer can look at records of the potential employee to determine what outcomes they have achieved. They can then determine if the potential employee has the skills necessary for the job.
• Stakeholder Involvement
  • Student involvement
    • key part of OBE are that Students are expected to do their own learning, so that they gain a full understanding of the material.
    • Increased student involvement allows students to feel responsible for their own learning, and they should learn more through this individual learning.
  • parental and community, through developing curriculum, or making changes to it
    • OBE outcomes are meant to be decided upon within a school system, or at a local level.
    • Parents and community members are asked to give input in order to uphold the standards of education within a community and to ensure that students will be prepared for life after school.

Negative

• Definition
  • The definitions of the outcomes decided upon are subject to interpretation by those implementing them.
    • Across different programs or even different instructors outcomes could be interpreted differently, leading to a difference in education, even though the same outcomes were said to be achieved.
  • By outlining specific outcomes, a holistic approach to learning is lost.
  • Learning can find itself reduced to something that is specific, measurable, and observable. As a result, outcomes are not yet widely recognized as a valid way of conceptualizing what learning is about.
• Assessment problems
  • When determining if an outcome has been achieved, assessments may become too mechanical, looking only to see if the student has acquired the knowledge.
    • The ability to use and apply the knowledge in different ways may not be the focus of the assessment.
    • leads to a loss of understanding and learning for students, who may never be shown how to use the knowledge they have gained
  • Instructors' challenges:
    • they must learn to manage an environment that can become fundamentally different from what they are accustomed to.
  • In regards to giving assessments, they must be willing to put in the time required to create a valid, reliable assessment that ideally would allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the information, while remaining objective
• Generality
  • Education outcomes can lead to a constrained nature of teaching and assessment.
  • Assessing liberal outcomes such as creativity, respect for self and others, responsibility, and self-sufficiency, can become problematic. There is not a measurable, observable, or specific way to determine if a student has achieved these outcomes.
  • Due to the nature of specific outcomes, OBE may actually work against its ideals of serving and creating individuals that have achieved many outcomes
• Involvement
  • Parental involvement can also be a drawback if parents and community members are not willing to express their opinions on the quality of the education system. The system may not see a need for improvement, and not change to meet student’s needs.
  • Parents may also become too involved, requesting too many changes, so that important improvements get lost with other changes that are being suggested.
  • Instructors will also find that their work is increased; they must work to first understand the outcome, then build a curriculum around each outcome they are required to meet.
  • Instructors have found that implementing multiple outcomes is difficult to do equally, especially in primary school. Instructors will also find their work load increased if they chose to use an assessment method that evaluates students holistically.