Anticipating the 'outcome' of outcomes-based education

In 1998 the Curriculum Framework was launched in Western Australia. Professor Lesley Parker, Chair of the Curriculum Council, noted:

The Curriculum Framework was developed through a unique consultative process that involved almost 10,000 teachers, parents, academics, curriculum officers, students and other members of the community. All school systems and sectors in this State are committed to the learning outcomes in the Framework as they are the ones that are valued by the community. It adopts an approach to education that takes advantage of the best knowledge we have about how students learn. It recognises that life in the future will be different from today's experience. Students will need not only basic knowledge and skills to succeed as members of their communities but also the ability to actively respond to a changing workplace and society.

The great challenge now is to implement it in the same spirit in which it was developed, so that, by 2004, the Framework will be in full use in all schools.
(Education Department of Western Australia, n.d.)

The June 1999 Issues of Teaching and Learning, "Outcome-based learning - a shift in focus", questioned the likely impact upon UWA of student cohorts whose schooling had been shaped by the outcomes-based experience derived from the Curriculum Framework. Those first students will arrive here in 2005. Given their background in outcome-based learning, will they recognise the opportunity of this university experience? Will we understand them and their needs as learners?

The Curriculum Framework is an example of what Spady(1988) describes as 'exit outcomes' for students that are based on challenges and opportunities they will face after graduation. Exit outcomes are critical to curriculum design in that "you develop the curriculum from the outcomes you want students to demonstrate, rather than writing objectives for the curriculum you already have" (p. 6).

UWA enumerates their specific 'exit outcomes' as Educational Principles in the Strategic Plan that states

Students at The University of Western Australia are encouraged to develop the ability and desire:

• master the subject matter and techniques of their chosen discipline at internationally-recognised levels and standards;
• acquire the skills required to learn, and to continue through life to learn, from a variety of sources and experiences;
• adapt acquired knowledge to new situations;
• write and speak clearly, concisely and logically;
• think and reason logically and creatively;
• question accepted wisdom and be open to new ideas and possibilities;
• develop mature judgement and responsibility in moral, social, and practical, as well as academic matters;
• develop the capacity to take a leadership role in the community.

The Curriculum Framework says of outcomes:

The outcomes-focused approach will provide schools with more flexibility to enable teachers to develop different learning and teaching programs to help their particular students achieve the outcomes. Schools will respond to their own ethos or that of their system, the needs of their community and the situations of their students by pursuing the common outcomes and by developing additional outcomes that match the specific needs of the students.
(Curriculum Council, n.d.).

Would it be unreasonable to expect the same flexibility here, even when UWA outcomes, at whatever level within the University, differ substantially from those in the Curriculum Framework? What should be consistent within an outcomes-based education paradigm is that all other levels of outcomes within UWA, programme outcomes, course outcomes, unit outcomes and lesson outcomes, should be derived from and aligned with the 'exit outcomes' (Spady, 1988).

• Curriculum Council. (n.d.). Overarching Statement - Key features of the Curriculum Framework, [WWW]. Curriculum Council. Available: http://www.curriculum.wa.edu.au/pages/framework/framework03b.htm [2002, 24 April].
• Education Department of Western Australia. (n.d.). The curriculum framework & student outcome statements, [PDF File]. Curriculum Council. Available: http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/centoff/outcomes/parents/parent.pdf [2002, 24 April].
• Outcome-based learning - a shift in focus. (1999, June). Issues of Teaching and Learning, 5, 1.
• Spady, W. (1988). Organizing for results: The basis of authentic restructuring and reform. Educational Leadership, 46, 2: 4-8.