Page 54 - Making Instruction Work

chap 5 3/11/97 4:49 PM Page 42

42 making instruction work

For example, you may decide, or be told, that students
should:

• be motivated,

• demonstrate courtesy to ____________,

• be safety-conscious,

• value total patient health,

• have good analytical ability,

• be problem-solvers,

• be self-starters,

• exhibit good leadership characteristics,

•be empowered,
or any of hundreds of other possible states. When expectations
are stated as “fuzzies”—vague terms—a task analysis, which
you’ll read about in the next chapter, won’t help. Since there is
no task to watch anyone perform (you can’t watch people lead-
ershipping or attituding), a different tool is needed.
Enter the goal analysis. The purpose of the goal analysis is to
determine what it would take in the way of observable human
performance to be able to say that the goal had been accom-
plished. The purpose is to say what someone would have to do
to be considered “safety-conscious” or “competent”—to say
what someone would have to do to be worthy of being labeled
as having achieved the goal. In other words, the goal analysis
will show you how to recognize one when you see one.