Page 58 - Making Instruction Work

chap 5 3/11/97 4:49 PM Page 46

46 making instruction work

achieved the goal? List as many performances as you can
think of. Don’t edit. Just list.

3. Sort the list. Many of the items you listed will be as fuzzy
as the one you started with. That’s okay. Put a mark
beside the fuzzies, write them on another piece of paper,
and apply Steps 1 and 2 to these new fuzzies.

Continue until you have a list of performances that col-
lectively represent the goal. Continue until you can say,
“Yes. If people did these things and refrained from doing
these other things, I would say they had achieved the
goal.”

4. Expand the words and phrases on your list into com-
plete sentences that tell when or how often the perfor-
mance is expected to occur. This will help you to place
limits around the expected performances. It will help
to say “how much” performance will satisfy you (or
someone else). For example, a goal analysis on security-
consciousness included the item, “No unattended docu-
ments.” When expanded into a complete sentence, it
read,“Employee always locks sensitive documents in safe
before leaving the room.”

This step will also help you to weed out statements that,
on second thought, don’t say what you mean.

5. Test for completeness. Review the performances on your
list (there will usually be from one to seven items and
only occasionally more), and ask yourself, “If someone
did these things, would I be willing to say that he or she
is _________ (goal) __________?”If so, you are finished
with the analysis. If not, return to Step 2 and add the
missing performances.